BV  3797  .857 

Smith,  Gipsy,  1860-1947 

Real  religion 


REAL  RELIGION 
GIPSY  SMITH 


REAL    RELIGION 

Revival  Sermons  Delivered 
During  His   Twentieth    Visit  to  America 

GIPSY  SMITH 

AUTHOR  OF    "evangelistic   TALKS,"    "tHE   LOST  CHRIST," 

"your  boys,"  etc 


NEW  S^SJF  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1922. 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


REAL  RELIGION.    II 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMEiUCA 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  THE  AGONY  AND   JOY   OF  SALVATION          .          .  9 

II      THE   FAITH   THAT   SAVES 23 

III  THE    MARKS  OF  THE   NEW  BIRTH        ...  33 

IV      THE   SPIRIT-FILLED  LIFE 47 

V      THE   MODEL    CHRISTIAN 57 

VI      THE    MODEL  CHURCH 67 

VII      THE   REAL   KINGDOM 79 

VIII      SEEDTIME   AND   HARVEST 89 

IX      STRENGTH    AND  BEAUTY 99 

X      JESUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE Ill 

XI      CHRIST   IN   THE   HOME ! 125 

XII  PAUL  TEACHING  IN  THE  INQUIRY  ROOM   .          .  135 

XIII      BEARING  AND  SHARING 147 


THE  AGONY  AND  JOY  OF 
SALVATION 


REAL  RELIGION 


THE  AGONY  AND  JOY  OF  SALVATION 

Text  :  "Strive  to  enter  in  at  the  strait  gate ;  for  many, 
I  say  unto  you,  will  seek  to  enter  in,  and  shall  not  be 
able.  When  once  the  master  of  the  house  is  risen  up, 
and  hath  shut  the  door." 

St.  Luke.    Chapter  i^,  Verse  24 
and  part  of  Verse  25. 

Let  me  read  this  text  as  I  think  it  should  be  read, 
"Strive  (or  agonise)  to  enter  in  at  the  strait  gate; 
for  many,  I  say  unto  you,  will  seek  to  enter  in,  and 
shall  not  be  able  when  once  the  master  of  the  house 
is  risen  up,  and  hath  shut  the  door." 

It  has  been  hinted  to  me  that  in  my  preaching  I  am 
making  things  rather  difficult.  If  you  will  read  the 
New  Testament  you  will  discover  that  Jesus  never 
made  salvation  easy.  Any  one  who  thinks  that  it  is 
an  easy  thing  to  be  a  Christian  does  not  know  Jesus, 
neither  does  he  know  the  New  Testament.  I  am  cer- 
tain that  if  any  one  thinks  it  is  easy  to  live  the  Christ- 
like life,  he  or  she  has  never  tried  to  live  it  in  all 
its  fulness  and  beauty.  I  want  to  emphasise  this, 
because  I  do  not  want  any  candidate  for  discipleship 
to  be  under  an  illusion  concerning  what  it  means  to  be 


10  REAL  RELIGION 

a  Christian.  I  want  to  make  discipleship  as  plain  as 
the  New  Testament  makes  it,  as  difficult  as  the  New 
Testament  makes  it,  as  easy  as  the  New  Testament 
makes  it.  I  may,  perhaps,  sweep  away  many  of  your 
preconceived  ideas  on  the  subject,  but  I  am  prepared 
for  that.  You  may  not  relish  all  I  have  to  say  but  I 
never  knew  any  one  yet  who  thoroughly  enjoyed  a 
surgical  operation.  Do  you  expect  that  I  am  looking 
to  you  to  enjoy  my  ministry  if  you  are  not  right  with 
God?  I  want  to  present  my  message  to  you  that 
you  will  not  feel  at  peace  under  my  preaching  until 
you  do  get  right  with  Him. 

There  are  thousands  upon  thousands  of  people  who 
are  called  Christians  and  who  yet  have  no  right  to  the 
title.  Many  of  these  are  Church-members,  without 
knowing  why  they  are.  But  the  child  of  God  knows 
why  he  seeks  fellowship  with  the  Church,  and  with 
God's  people.  The  man  who  is  born  again  can  give 
an  answer  to  the  question  as  to  why  he  is  a  Church- 
member.  A  person  coming  under  the  regenerating 
power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  can  give  an  answer.  They 
know! 

Some  time  ago  a  young  lady  wrote  to  me  and  said, 
*T  have  just  graduated.  I  am  leaving  college!  My 
minister  wants  me  to  join  the  Church.  He  says  I 
ought  to.  My  parents  also  seek  to  persuade  me,  and 
they  are  giving  me  no  rest.  But,  Gipsy  Smith,  I  once 
heard  you  speak,  and  say  that  the  first  thing  necessary 
to  discipleship  is  a  change  of  heart.  What  ought  I  to 
do?  Ought  I  to  join  the  Church  in  response  to  my 
parents'  wishes,  and  my  pastor's  request?  What  do 
you  say?"     I  replied,  *The  New  Testament  says  you 


THE  AGONY  AND  JOY  OF  SALVATION       11 

must  be  born  again.  It  does  not  say  'join  the 
Church/ "  Church-membership  is  all  right  in  its 
proper  place.  It  is  the  natural  outcome  of  a  change 
of  heart,  of  a  new-born  spirit.  It  is  the  outward  and 
visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace.  But  if 
you  put  Church-membership  in  the  place  of  disciple- 
ship  you  are  mocking  God,  and  deceiving  your 
own  soul.  Any  one,  pastor  or  parents,  who  induces 
you  to  join  the  Church  without  first  making  enquiry 
concerning  your  new  birth  is  leading  you  along  a 
crooked  path  which  leads  nowhere.  No  true  teacher, 
with  an  open  Bible  in  his  hand,  could  do  such  a  thing. 
I  hear  people  crying  "Peace!  Peace!"  where  there  is 
no  peace,  and  where  there  never  will  be  peace  until 
the  occasion  for  war  has  passed  away. 

It  is  a  big  thing  to  be  a  Christian — a  real  Christian. 
It  would  be  easy  for  me  to  take  your  name  and  write 
it  down  on  a  piece  of  paper  and  place  the  paper  in  a 
musty  cupboard  belonging  to  an  ecclesiastical  building 
and  call  it  a  Church  Roll.  I  could  write  your  name 
there.  I  could  sprinkle  you  in  baptism.  I  could 
immerse  you.  I  could  put  my  hands  upon  you  and 
confirm  you.  I  could  do  all  that — but  it  takes  the 
Holy  Ghost  to  make  you  a  Child  of  God.  That  is  a 
vital  experience  in  the  pathway  of  discipleship. 

The  New  Birth  is  not  after  the  will  of  man,  or  the 
will  of  flesh.  It  is  a  work  done  in  you  by  the  Holy 
Ghost.  No  organisation  can  do  it.  No  creed  can 
accomplish  it.  It  is  done  for  you  from  the  throne  of 
the  Omnipotent  God.  Listen!  You  will  never  expe- 
rience it  without  a  struggle — you  will  never  obtain  it 
without   an  effort — and   effort   of   your   own.     Your 


12  REAL  RELIGION 

minister  may  want  it  done  for  you.  Your  father  and 
mother  may  pray  that  it  may  come  upon  you;  your 
husband  or  your  wife  may  also  pray.  Somebody  else 
who  loves  you  may  want  this  thing  to  be  done,  but 
only  you  and  God  can  do  it.  Nothing  can  be  done 
until  you  and  God  come  together.  If  ever  you  get 
through  the  gates  of  pearl,  if  ever  you  see  the  King 
in  His  beauty,  if  ever  you  witness  the  glory  of  those 
ministering  angels  who  wait  upon  God,  if  ever  you 
walk  the  golden  streets  and  breathe  the  air  of  an  end- 
less Paradise,  it  will  be  because  you  have  sufficient 
volition,  intelligence,  will  and  determination  to  settle 
this  matter  with  God  and  with  yourself. 

This  leads  me  to  the  next  thing.  The  Bible  does 
not  say  do  this,  and  do  that  and  you  will  be  a  Chris- 
tian. It  says,  "Ye  must  be  born  again!"  "But,"  you 
object,  "is  not  Love's  atoning  work  done?"  "Yes! 
'Love's'  atoning  work — but  not  yours.  God  has  never 
done  your  work — and  never  will.  You  are  a  free 
agent.  He  appeals  to  you  for  action  and  expects  a 
response.  The  whole  matter  rests  with  you.  I  say 
this  reverently — ^that  God  can  do  no  more  for  you  than 
He  has  done,  not  until  you  respond  to  this  great  ap- 
peal. I  want  you  to  think  over  this  statement,  for 
unless  you  do  think  over  it,  I  can  lead  you  nowhere. 
I  want  your  conscience  and  your  intelligence  to  work 
together  upon  this  subject,  for  the  more  deeply  you 
consider  it  the  more  certain  will  your  experience  be- 
come. People  who  are  superficial  in  spiritual  things — 
who  live  on  the  surface  of  great  spiritual  events — can 
never  be  satisfied.  The  people  who  gain  most  are  those 
who  dive  down  into  the  depths,  who  probe  into  the 


THE  AGONY  AND  JOY  OF  SALVATION       13 

heart  of  things.  Jesus  never  made  it  easy  for  any  one 
to  be  saved.  There  was  a  man,  you  remember,  who 
came  to  Jesus  and  found  Him  in  the  midst  of  a  great 
work,  heahng  all  sorts  of  people,  and  blessing  them. 
Yet  this  man  had  the  will-power  to  get  to  Jesus. 

Here,  for  example,  is  an  inquisitive  man.  There  has 
not  been  a  preacher  in  his  locality  for  twenty  years 
whom  he  has  not  heard.  He  goes  from  one  church  to 
another.  All  the  rehgion  he  has  is  in  the  heels  of  his 
boots.  He  is  a  speculative  sort  of  person,  and  says, 
'There  are  lots  of  men  moving  around  Christ  and 
apparently  moving  toward  Christ,  but  how  many  will 
get  really  converted?  How  many  will  remain  true  in 
six  months'  time?"  We  preachers,  all  of  us,  know 
this  man,  and  have  heard  him  speak  time  and  again. 
I  have  had  people  come  to  me  some  time  after  a  great 
revival  and  say,  "Where  are  your  converts  now?^'  I 
say,  in  reply,  "They  are  where  you  drove  them."  Are 
there  few  that  will  be  saved  ?  Listen  to  the  answer : 
Jesus  says,  Save  yourselves!  Never  mind  the  other 
fellows  who  strive  to  enter  the  strait  gate,  for  they 
will  seek  to  enter  and  will  not  be  able  when  once  the 
master  of  the  house  has  shut  the  door.  What  does 
that  mean?  Get  in  while  the  bell  rings!  Don't  rush 
up  ten  seconds  after  the  train  has  left  the  platform 
and  look  so  earnest  and  wistful  as  if  its  departure 
had  broken  your  heart.  Don't  find  fault  with  the 
railway  company  for  starting  the  train  on  time.  Get 
in  while  the  train  is  there — waiting!  There  is  a 
time  hmit.  Strive  to  get  in!  Strive  to  the  point  of 
blood  and  death  if  necessary  to  enter  the  strait  gate. 
Lose  everything  else  in  the  world  if  it  hinders  you  from 


14  REAL  RELIGION 

achieving:  your  object.  Strive  to  do  this!  It  will  not 
be  easy.    It  is  a  life  and  death  struggle!    Strive! 

There  was  another  man  who  came  to  Jesus.  He 
came  to  headquarters  and  he  said  to  the  Commander- 
in-Chief,  to  the  high  authority,  ''What  shall  I  do  that 
I  may  inherit  eternal  life?"  Jesus  said,  ''Sell  whatso- 
ever thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor  .  .  .  and  come, 
take  up  the  cross  and  follow  Me."  It  was  too  diffi- 
cult. He  did  not  do  it.  He  went  away  sorrowful. 
But  Jesus  did  not  lower  the  standard,  not  even  for  the 
young  ruler,  whom  He  loved.    He  did  not  compromise. 

Take  note  of  another  man,  one  of  the  inner  circle, 
one  of  the  professed  princes  of  the  Church  of  his  day, 
an  office-bearer  in  the  Church,  but  one  who  was  not 
born  again.  This  was  a  man  who  could  boast  of  the 
mantle  of  religious  knowledge,  the  phylactery  of  the 
Pharisee.  He  said,  "Rabbi,  we  know  that  thou  art  a 
teacher  come  from  God."  Jesus  said  to  this  man, 
"Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  thee.  Except  a  man  be  born 
again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God."  Jesus 
would  not  make  discipleship  easy,  even  for  a  master  in 
Israel. 

There  was  another  man  who  said,  "Lord,  I  will  fol- 
low Thee  whithersoever  Thou  goest."  Jesus  knew  this 
man  had  counted  the  cost  of  discipleship,  and  said, 
"The  foxes  have  holes  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have 
nests,  but  the  Son  of  Man  hath  not  where  to  lay  His 
head."  It  will  not  be  easy,  said  Jesus,  in  effect,  to  fol- 
low Me !  "If  thine  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out."  "If 
thy  hand  or  thy  foot  offend  thee,  cut  them  off."  "It  is 
better  for  thee  to  enter  into  life  halt  or  maimed,  rather 
than  having  two  hands  or  two  feet,  to  be  cast  into 


THE  AGONY  AND  JOY  OF  SALVATION       15 

everlasting  fire."  It  is  your  Master  who  speaks.  Hear 
him.  He  never  makes  discipleship  an  easy  thing.  It 
is  we  who  have  cheapened  reUgion;  we  who  have 
vulgarised  it.  To  our  shame,  we  have  compromised 
with  the  spirit  of  this  world,  and  the  angels  shudder  to 
the  tips  of  their  wings.     May  God  forgive  us ! 

I  said  to  that  dear  girl  who  asked  for  advice.  "Do 
not  join  any  Church  until  you  get  right  with  God." 
That  is  my  message  to  all  men  and  women  who  seek 
Christian  fellowship.  What  is  the  use  of  Church- 
membership  without  the  new  birth  ?  Why  take  Holy 
Communion?  What  is  the  use  of  being  an  office- 
bearer if  you  are  not  in  harmony  with  the  God  whom 
you  profess  to  serve?  It  is  sheer  blasphemy  to  do 
these  things.  To  many  people,  joining  the  Church 
means  little  more  than  joining  a  club,  or  becoming 
a  member  of  the  Boy  Scouts.  I  am  not  certain  it  al- 
ways means  as  much  as  that.  Nothing  but  a  new  heart 
and  a  surrendered  life  will  satisfy  the  conscience  and 
the  intellect  in  the  light  of  the  resurrection  morning, 
and  nothing  less  will  bring  peace  and  deliverance. 
You  will  not  reach  your  goal  without  an  effort.  You 
must  "strive"  to  enter  into  your  heritage!  You  may 
have  to  tell  the  people  you  live  with  that  you  are  going 
to  be  a  Christian,  no  matter  what  it  costs.  That  you 
do  not  care  what  people  think  of  you — ^that  you  are  go- 
ing to  give  your  soul  a  chance,  and  God  a  chance.  You 
will  have  to  be  a  good  Christian.  You  may  have  to 
put  your  fingers  in  your  ears  and  set  your  face  toward 
the  Cross  and  run.  Discipleship  will  not  come  cheaply. 
Our  pianist  did  not  acquire  that  magnificent  touch  on 
the  piano  without  much  practice — without  a  "regular 


16  REAL  RELIGION 

grind."  He  did  not  pick  it  up  at  a  street  corner,  or 
whilst  dancing  to  jazz  music.  He  did  not  develop  the 
finer  sensibilities  of  a  musician  by  listening  to  the  beat- 
ing of  a  drum  or  a  tin  kettle.  You  must  have  the  soul 
of  a  musician  to  develop  a  touch  so  delicate  that  the 
angels  will  fly  toward  you  enchanted.  Men  and  women 
do  not  advance  along  the  highway  of  spiritual  progress 
without  a  struggle.  Men  do  not  master  anything  at  all 
without  effort,  and  discipleship  is  the  biggest  study  of 
all,  the  most  difficult  study,  the  study  that  takes  most 
out  of  the  human  soul,  and  brings  about  a  result  ap- 
proved of  God,  and  of  which  the  workman  need  not 
be  ashamed.  Most  boys  and  girls  to-day  go  to  school. 
I  was  a  Gipsy  boy  who  was  never  at  school,  and  at  the 
age  of  i6  I  could  not  read.  How  do  you  suppose  I 
mastered  the  English  language  ?  How  do  you  suppose 
I  got  a  grip  of  it  ?  I  sat  down  at  nights  with  a  candle 
in  a  bottle  for  a  candlestick,  and  I  pored  over  a  Bible 
and  a  dictionary,  the  two  books  together,  until  the  light 
of  day  broke,  but  with  the  morning  I  had  triumphed. 
I  knew  God.  I  knew  His  Will.  This  knowledge  cost 
me  hours  of  sleep,  night  after  night.  Often,  I  preached 
all  day  and  studied  all  night.  Blessed  be  God,  the 
struggle  did  me  good.  You  must  not  think  that  you 
are  going  to  get  to  heaven  on  a  bed  of  roses.  You 
won't  get  there  that  way. 

The  truth  is,  we  do  not  take  sufficient  time  to  culti- 
vate the  religious  life.  We  are  too  much  in  a  crowd. 
We  are  afraid  to  be  alone.  We  are  afraid  of  God,  and 
afraid  of  ourselves.  We  can  get  so  afraid  of  God,  and 
of  the  things  of  God,  that  we  will  not  take  time  to  face 


THE  AGONY  AND  JOY  OF  SALVATION   17 

them.  Spiritual  things  are  spiritually  discerned  and 
spiritually  understood.  You  cannot  really  understand 
the  stars  until  you  know  something  of  astronomy. 
You  cannot  understand  the  beauty  and  glory  of  the 
flowers  until  you  know  something  of  botany.  A  rose 
is  botanically  understood.  Stars  are  astronomically 
understood.  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  those  who  worship 
Him  must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  Spirit- 
ual things  are  spiritually  understood.  Discipleship  is 
a  fight — a  struggle — a  conflict.  It  is  warfare.  It  is  a 
warfare  against  the  spirit  of  this  world,  which  mis- 
understands, abuses,  jeers  at  those  who  would  follow 
Jesus !  It  means  taking  your  stand  against  unknown 
powers — it  means  having  the  manhood  and  the  hard- 
ness in  all  circumstances  to  say  ^'Christ  for  me.'*  This 
is  the  kind  of  discipleship  the  New  Testament  teaches. 
There  is  nothing  sensational  about  it,  nothing  vulgar 
about  it.  Without  effort  you  will  never  be  a  Christian. 
Religion — discipleship — is  not  something  cheap,  nor 
small.  The  most  noble  thing  this  side  Heaven  is  a  man 
or  woman  with  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ.  God  could 
not  call  you  to  anything  higher  than  to  be  His  child. 
"Strive,"  therefore,  to  be  worthy  of  your  high  calHng. 
The  door  is  open — the  strait  gate  of  discipleship — 
strive  to  enter,  while  you  may.  You  can  go  in !  There 
is  a  way  to  it  here  and  now  and  no  devil  in  hell,  no 
power  on  earth,  can  keep  you  from  going  in  if  you 
really  want  to.  The  door  is  open  and  the  path  plain. 
Have  you  grace,  and  courage,  and  strength,  suf- 
ficient to  walk  in?  You  can  get  in  on  one  condition 
— that   you   are   willing   to  leave   your   sins   outside. 


18  REAL  RELIGION 

Everything  in  your  life  that  is  ugly,  mean,  and  con- 
temptible must  be  left  outside.  You  must  leave  the 
world  outside.  You  must  get  rid  of  all  that  Jesus 
cannot  approve  of,  and  no  one  knows  but  you  what  this 
is.  He  will  tell  you  if  you  really  want  to  know.  He 
will  not  leave  you  in  doubt  as  to  what  it  is.  You  must 
get  near  to  Him  and  the  nearer  you  get  the  more  you 
will  know  His  mind  and  will. 

I  do  not  care  who  you  are — what  your  moral  and 
spiritual  condition  may  be — what  entanglements  you 
are  in — what  your  past  life  has  been.  You  can  get  in 
through  the  straight  gate  of  pardon  and  life  and  re- 
conciliation and  peace  and  triumph  and  heaven  to-day 
if  you  have  got  sufficient  courage — sufficient  man- 
hood and  womanhood  to  say  "I  will." 

I  got  my  first  ideas  of  God — not  from  books — for  I 
could  not  read  them — ^but  from  the  lips  of  my  father, 
and  it  was  like  the  unfolding  of  a  rose  in  the  early 
June  morning.  I  had  no  mother  to  love  me — she  was 
gone.  As  a  little  boy  I  remember  how  I  used  to  go 
and  sit  down  in  the  hedge  and  yearn  and  cry  for 
Mother,  but  when  it  dawned  upon  me  that  Jesus  loved 
me,  the  old,  cold,  lonely  world  became  a  new  world  to 
me.  I  well  remember  the  first  prayer  I  ever  uttered. 
It  was  just  this.  "Blessed  Jesus,  make  my  heart  Thy 
home!"  And — do  you  know — He  just  did  it.  How 
— and  why — I  cannot  explain,  any  more  than  I  can 
explain  the  fragrance  of  that  rose.  He  does  not  ask 
me  to  explain  it.  He  just  came  in  and  the  wonder  is 
that  He  stays  there.  He  does !  If  you  will  pray  that 
prayer  and  mean  it — as  I  meant  it — if  you  will  sur- 


THE  AGONY  AND  JOY  OF  SALVATION       19 

render,  as  I  surrendered,  He  will  make  your  heart  His 
home.  But  you  will  not  get  there  without  a  struggle. 
You  will  have  to  fight  your  way  home.  God  help  you 
to  do  it,  for  it  is  so  essentially  "worth  while."  Strive, 
therefore,  to  enter  in. 


II 

THE  FAITH  THAT  SAVES 


II 

THE  FAITH  THAT  SAVES 

Text  :  "For  with  the  heart  man  believeth  unto  right- 
eousness; and  with  the  mouth  confession  is  made  unto 
salvation." 

Epistle  to  Romans.    Chapter  lo,  Verse  lo. 

I  wish  to  speak  to  you  about  faith — saving  faith; 
because  there  is  a  faith  which  does  not  save  and  thai  is 
more  popular. 

We  preachers  have  not  to  deal  to-day  with  blatant 
infidelity.  If  you  had  been  with  me  in  France  in  the 
oceans  of  blood,  in  the  midst  of  bursting  bombs  and 
shells,  in  the  hell  of  gas  attacks,  you  would  not  have 
found  such  infidelity.  It  did  not  exist  over  there. 
In  my  movements  among  men,  whether  in  America  or 
in  my  own  country,  in  Australia,  South  Africa,  or  any 
other  part  of  the  civilised  world,  I  have  found  that  the 
days  of  pronounced  scepticism  and  unbelief  have,  to  a 
great  extent,  passed  away.  Indifference?  Yes,  any 
amount  of  it — but  not  infidelity.  Unbelief  in  religion 
and  in  religious  things  as  they  exist,  but  not  in  God, 
nor  in  Jesus  Christ.  Not  in  the  real  thing !  Unbelief 
in  the  poor  caricature  which  so  many  professed  Chris- 
tians present  in  their  lives,  but  not  in  the  real,  genuine 
Christ-likeness  which  marks  the  disciple  of  our  Master 
and  Lord. 

I  say,  infidelity  is  comparatively  rare.  There  is  be- 
lief in  the  world — but  what  sort  of  belief?    Belief  in 

23 


24  REAL  RELIGION 

whom — in  what?  Is  it  genuine,  Pentecostal,  regen- 
erating faith,  or  is  it  false,  anaemic,  spurious  ?  I  want 
you  to  decide  here  and  now  the  kind  of  faith  you 
will  possess;  because  the  nature  of  your  belief  makes 
all  the  difference  in  your  relationship  to  God  and  to 
eternity.  Listen  to  what  Jesus  says  about  that  matter 
— ^Jesus,  who  is  Truth.  *'He  that  believeth  on  the  Son 
hath  everlasting  life,  and  he  that  believeth  not  the  Son 
shall  not  see  life;  but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  in 
him."  The  responsibility  of  believing  is  placed  upon 
us — upon  you  and  upon  me.  If  that  is  true,  you  and  I 
had  better  find  out  what  kind  of  belief  we  hold;  what 
kind  we  have  got.  If  salvation  depends  upon,  indivi- 
dual, personal  belief,  upon  intelligent  belief  about  Jesus 
Christ,  it  is  high  time  for  us  to  find  out  where  and 
how  we  stand  in  this  matter,  and  what  we  do  believe. 

I  say  again  there  is  a  saving  faith,  and  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  a  damning  faith.  Which  have  you  got? 
Shew  me  thy  faith ;  shew  me  thy  works.  Faith  with- 
out works  is  dead.  When  a  thing  is  dead  we  bury 
it,  lest  corruption  should  set  in.  Faith  without  works 
is  dead.  You  say  you  have  faith,  then  shew  me  your 
works.  "By  their  fruits — by  their  works — ye  shall 
know  them."  I  am  going  to  show  you  whether  your 
faith  is  true  or  false,  whether  it  is  Bible  faith  or  not. 
Living,  vital,  saving  faith  always  produces  a  particular 
kind  of  fruit.  It  has  never  failed  in  this  respect. 
Herein  lies  the  acid  test  of  your  faith  and  mine. 

If  I  came  to  you  and  said,  "Are  you  a  believer?" 
you  would  doubtless  reply,  "Of  course  I  am  a  be- 
liever. What  do  you  think  I  am — a  heathen?"  But 
when  you  declare  that  you  are  a  believer,  and  show 


THE  FAITH  THAT  SAVES  25 

that  your  life  is  anything  but  fruitful  of  the  works  of 
a  beUever,  don't  you  see  that  you  are  condemning 
yourself  out  of  your  own  lips?  Don't  you  see  that 
it  would  be  better  for  you  not  to  believe  at  all  than  to 
say  you  are  a  believer  in  Christ  and  continue  to  live  the 
kind  of  life  you  do  live,  and  of  which  Christ  would 
surely  disapprove.  Don't  you  see  that  it  would  have 
been  better  for  you  to  have  been  born  in  a  heathen  land 
than  to  have  been  born  here,  and  then  to  live  like 
a  Hottentot  or  a  pygmy  in  darkest  Africa.  Don't  you 
see  how  wrong  it  is  to  profess  to  believe  in  God 
and  yet  treat  Him  as  if  He  had  no  existence;  no 
concern  whatever  with  your  comings  and  goings,  your 
doings  and  misdoings;  your  Hfe  to-day  and  your  life 
for  eternity  ?  Don't  you  see  how  inconsistent  you  are  ? 
I  said  to  a  man  the  other  day,  ''Are  you  a  saved 
man?"  "Saved,"  said  he,  "what  do  you  mean?"  I 
said,  "Are  you  a  Christian?"  He  said,  "What  do  you 
mean?"  I  said,  "Have  you  a  soul?"  He  rephed,  "Of 
course,  I  have  a  soul!"  Then  I  said,  "Is  your  soul 
saved?"  He  said  again,  "I  don't  know  that  it  is!" 
Then  I  said,  "Don't  you  see  how  contrary  and  incon- 
sistent you  are  ?  You  have  a  soul,  you  say,  and  yet  you 
do  not  take  the  trouble  to  know  if  your  soul  is  right 
with  God."  The  world  is  full  of  just  that  sort  of  be- 
liever. Men  and  women  say,  "I  believe  in  God;  I  be- 
lieve in  Jesus ;  I  believe  in  the  Bible !"  What  does  all 
this  amount  to?  That  is  all  the  faith  they  possess  when 
they  go  to  Church  on  Sunday ;  intellectual  faith.  They 
believe  in  Jesus  as  they  believe  in  William  the  Con- 
queror ;  in  Henry  the  Eighth ;  or  in  Abraham  Lincoln 
— perhaps  not  so  much.     Some  of  these  people  would 


26  REAL  RELIGION 

applaud  Abraham  Lincoln — ^but  not  Jesus  Christ.  A 
merely  intellectual  faith  will  never  save  anybody.  That 
is  spurious,  ineffective,  worse  than  useless.  A  merely 
intellectual  conviction  about  things  in  general  will  not 
save  you.  A  faith  that  does  not  convict  you  of  sin 
and  lead  you  to  repentance  and  transform  your  life 
is  not  the  faith  of  the  New  Testament.  A  faith  that 
does  not  change  your  heart,  and  your  appetites  and 
desires,  is  not  a  saving  faith.  The  world  is  full  of 
intellectual  belief  which  produces  no  fruit;  whose 
works  are  dead.  There  is  not  a  drunkard  in  your  city 
who  does  not  believe  that  it  is  best  to  be  sober.  If 
you  ask  such  a  one  if  he  believes  in  sobriety  he  will 
reply,  ''Of  course  I  do,"  but  he  will  get  drunk  if  he  can 
get  whisky.  That  is  not  the  faith  which  saves.  That 
is  merely  intellectual  faith.  Go  to  the  people  in  jail 
and  find  out  what  they  are  there  for  and  earnestly 
enquire  of  them  if  they  think  it  is  best  to  be  honest 
and  upright  and  law-abiding,  and  you  know  what  the 
answer  will  be.  Of  course,  they  believe  it  is  best  to 
be  honest,  but  theirs  is  not  an  honest  faith,  or  they 
would  not  be  there. 

You  say,  "I  believe  in  God:  I  believe  in  Jesus:  I 
believe  in  judgment :  and  I  know  I  have  to  die  !'*  But 
that  kind  of  faith  does  not  alter  your  life — and  that 
is  the  kind  of  faith  that  is  damning.  It  is  paralysing 
faith,  deceiving  faith,  ineffective  faith.  It  is  faith 
as  an  ally  of  Hell.  The  devil  does  not  mind  how 
much  or  how  little  you  believe  so  long  as  you  do 
not  stop  doing  his  will  and  his  works,  stop  lying,  stop 
stealing,  stop  cheating,  stop  swearing,  and  stop  being 
unkind  and  unlovely  and  bad-tempered  and  impure. 


THE  FAITH  THAT  SAVES  27 

The  devil  does  not  mind  what  you  beHeve  so  long  as 
you  go  on  in  the  old  settled,  wicked  way.  Faith,  living 
faith,  means  something  more  than  an  intellectual  assent 
to  things.  It  does  not  matter  how  much  you  know  of 
the  earth — it  is  what  you  do  whilst  you  are  in  it  that 
counts.  You  can  have  your  mind  full  of  Biblical 
truths  and  your  heart  abiding  in  unrighteousness. 
You  can  have  your  head  full  of  light  and  your  soul 
covered  with  darkness,  for  light  is  not  life.  You  may 
go  on  singing  *'I  believe"  until  doomsday,  but  you  will 
never  know  Jesus  without  a  faith  that  is  genuine,  and 
real — ^the  faith  that  saves. 

I  was  preaching  one  night  in  a  great  western  city. 
At  the  close  of  the  service,  a  dear  old  minister  came 
into  the  ante-room,  where  I  sat  alone.  He  had  had  his 
day,  this  white-haired,  saintly  brother,  and  was  wait- 
ing for  his  Lord.  He  came  into  the  room  and  walked 
straight  up  to  me  and  put  his  hand  upon  my  head.  I 
thought  he  was  going  to  bless  me,  and  stood  for  a  mo- 
ment with  closed  eyes,  waiting  for  the  prophet's  bless- 
ing. I  thought  he  was  going  to  bless  me,  or  to  pray 
for  me,  but  instead  he  began  to  feel  my  head.  Then  I 
became  curious,  and  said,  "Are  you  a  phrenologist,  or 
what  is  the  trouble?"  He  repHed,  "I  am  trying  to  find 
out  the  secret  of  your  success."  I  said,  "You  are  feel- 
ing too  high.  Come  down  here  (indicating  the  position 
of  my  heart).  It  is  not  in  the  head.  It  is  in  the  heart 
that  the  secret  lies !"  Men  and  women,  it  is  not  what 
your  head  assents  to  but  what  your  heart  does  that 
settles  your  salvation.  You  may  have  been  baptised 
and  yet  be  a  sinner.  You  may  know  all  the  creeds, 
and  yet  nothing  by  experience  of  the  saving  Grace  of 


28  REAL  RELIGION 

God.  You  may  have  godly  traditions  as  your  heritage 
and  yet  be  a  sinner  away  from  God.  You  may  have 
been  confirmed  at  the  altar  by  a  Father  in  God  and  yet 
be  a  stranger  in  the  family  of  the  ransomed  and  re- 
deemed. "Except  your  righteousness  exceed  that  of 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  ye  shall  in  nowise  enter  the 
Kingdom  of  God." 

I  do  not  want  you  to  make  any  mistake  about  the 
kind  of  faith  of  which  I  am  speaking.  It  is  a  faith  that 
reaches  down  to  the  very  roots  of  your  secret  being 
and  purifies  the  hidden  springs  of  your  existence.  It 
goes  into  the  old  and  musty  places  of  your  past,  and 
cleanses  everything  there,  for  God  regardeth  that  which 
is  past.  It  leaves  nothing  hidden,  nothing  covered 
up,  or  undealt  with.  The  faith  I  am  talking  about  is 
so  real  and  active  and  triumphant;  so  blessed  and  so 
beautiful;  that  it  puts  the  soul  right  with  God.  There 
is  no  peace  without  such  a  faith.  You  cannot  have 
peace  with  a  haunting  past.  Everything  that  speaks 
to  you  of  guilt  and  condemnation  must  be  taken  away. 
The  kind  of  faith  I  am  talking  about  goes  to  the  roots 
of  things  and  deals  with  the  wrong  there  and  puts  that 
right.  The  devil  believes  this  more  than  some  so  called 
Christian  people  do.  The  devil  believes  it  and  trembles. 
He  has  more  faith  than  some  Church  members  possess. 
The  devil  does  not  doubt  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ. 
The  devil  one  day  saw  Jesus  coming  and  said,  "I 
know  Who  Thou  art.  Thou  Holy  One  of  God."  The 
devil  believes,  but  he  is  not  converted,  because  his  faith 
is  not  a  converting  faith.  What  kind  of  faith  then,  is 
converting  faith?  It  is  faith  which  compels  you  to 
do  things  in  the  face  of  ridicule  and  scorn  in  order  that 


THE  FAITH  THAT  SAVES  29 

you  may  know  Jesus,  Whom  to  know  is  Life  Eternal. 
Paul  says,  that  I  may  know  Him  I  count  everything 
but  dross !  I  trample  underfoot  and  cast  out  of  my 
way  and  leave  behind  every  obstacle ;  that  I  may  know 
Him  and  the  power  of  His  resurrection  and  the  fellow- 
ship of  His  suffering.  You  have  got  to  get  there,  my 
brother,  my  sister.  You  have  got  to  get  such  faith; 
heart- faith. 

This  kind  of  faith  has  in  it  the  element  of  committal. 
It  means  leaning  with  all  your  weight  on  Jesus.  It 
means  venturing  your  all  on  the  atoning  blood  of  the 
Lamb.  It  means  staking  everything  on  the  Word  of  a 
faithful  God.  It  means  risking  much  but  gaining 
more.  The  soul  that  takes  such  a  risk  will  never  be 
let  down.  "Thou  hast  in  love  to  my  soul  delivered  it 
from  the  pit,"  says  Isaiah.  To  bring  back  a  soul 
from  thence  means  something.  What  kind  of  a  faith  is 
yours?  Has  it  saved  you?  Mine  has!  It  has  saved 
me !     Once  I  was  blind,  and  now  I  can  see. 

I  said  to  a  man  who  came  to  see  me  once,  "Are  you 
a  Christian  man?"  "I  think  so,"  he  replied.  "Have 
you  had  your  dinner?"  I  then  queried.  "Yes!"  he 
answered,  promptly.  "If  you  are  converted  you  are 
just  as  sure  of  the  first  as  of  the  last,"  I  said.  "A 
man  cannot  pass  through  the  pangs  of  the  New  Birth 
without  knowing  it."  Blessed  be  God,  there  is  no 
doubt  about  conversion,  no  uncertainty  about  it. 
Where  is  your  faith?  Where  are  your  works,  that 
you  have  not  the  joy  which  the  assurance  brings? 
If  Church-membership,  your  presence  at  the  Com- 
munion Table,  your  fellowship  with  the  Saints,  has 
not  convinced  you  that  you  are  a  Child  of  God,  what 


so  REAL  RELIGION 

is  the  use  of  these  things?  Give  them  up  until  you 
realise  the  joy  of  the  New  Birth.  I  am  not  asking  you 
to  give  up  a  certainty  for  an  uncertainty.  I  am  asking 
you  to  part  with  your  uncertainty  for  a  great  assur- 
ance. I  want  you  to  possess  the  faith  which  saves, 
which  brings  you  to  Christ. 

If  you  want  such  a  faith,  you  must  meet  the  con- 
ditions. Here  is  the  unalterable  word  of  God  *'Who- 
soever  shall  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  shall  be 
saved!"  This  means  you — and  it  means  now! 
Meet  the  condition !  Make  the  surrender !  Cast  out  the 
unclean  thing !  Separate  yourself  from  the  sin  that  is 
spoiling  your  life  and  holding  you  back  from  Jesus. 
I  once  offered  to  shake  hands  with  a  little  boy,  who 
held  out  to  me  his  closed  fist.  He  could  not  offer  his 
extended  hand  because  it  held  tightly  four  little  mar- 
bles. He  could  not  shake  hands  with  me  because  of 
his  playthings.  My  brother,  my  sister,  there  is  a 
Hand  held  out  to  you  here  and  now!  It  is  red  with 
blood,  and  bears  the  imprints  of  a  nail.  It  has  been 
held  out  to  you  for  years  and  you  could  never  clasp  it 
because  of  your  playthings.  The  child  had  his  marbles 
— what  have  you  got?  In  the  name  of  Christ  I 
beseech  you  to  let  everything  go  and  take  hold  of 
Christ's  extended  hand.  It  will  lift  you  up  from  the 
pit — out  of  the  miry  clay  of  sin — and  set  your  feet 
upon  the  rock  of  a  full  salvation.  It  will  save  you! 
Nothing  else  can  save  you !  Here  is  your  great  oppor- 
tunity. God  give  you  saving  faith  to  allow  you  to 
grasp  it. 


Ill 

THE   MARKS  OF  THE   NEW  BIRTH 


Ill 

THE  MARKS  OF  THE  NEW  BIRTH 

Text  :  "In  this  the  children  of  God  are  manifest,  and 
the  children  of  the  devil:  whosoever  doeth  not  right- 
eousness is  not  of  God,  neither  he  that  loveth  not  his 
brother." 

First  Epistle  of  John.    Chapter  s,  Verse  lo. 

Please  note  also  the  first  verse  of  the  same  chapter — 

"Behold,  what  manner  of  love  the  Father  hath  bestowed 
upon  us,  that  we  should  be  called  the  sons  of  God:  there- 
fore the  world  knoweth  us  not,  because  it  knew  him  not." 

Just  as  the  world  did  not  know  Jesus,  and  does  not 
know  Him  now,  it  will  not  know  those  who  are  like 
Him.  That  is  always  true.  If  the  world  knows  you, 
and  likes  you — if  you  are  popular  with  the  world 
and  are  one  with  the  spirit  of  the  world — something 
is  the  matter  with  your  professed  religion. 

"The  world  knoweth  us  not  because  it  knew  Him 
not." 

"Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth 
not — "  Let  me  say  at  once  that  those  words  are 
written  to  people  who  are  born  again.  They  are  ad- 
dressed to  people  inside  the  spiritual  circle,  friends  of 
Jesus,  intimate  with  Him,  knowing  His  mind,  doing 
His  will;  people  who  have  entered  into  fellowship 
with  Him. 


34  REAL  RELIGION 

"Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet 
appear  what  we  shall  be:  but  we  know  that  when  He  shall 
appear,  we  shall  be  like  Him :  for  we  shall  see  Him  as  he  is. 

"And  every  man  that  hath  this  hope  in  him  purifieth  him- 
self, even  as  He  is  pure. 

"Whosoever  committeth  sin  transgresseth  also  the  law :  for 
sin  is  the  transgression  of  the  law. 

"And  ye  know  that  He  was  manifested  to  take  away  our 
sins:  and  in  Him  is  no  sin. 

"Whosoever  abideth  in  Him  sinneth  not:  whosoever  sin- 
neth  hath  not  seen  Him,  neither  known  Him. 

"Little  children,  let  no  man  deceive  you:  he  that  doeth 
righteousness  is  righteous,  even  as  He  is  righteous. 

"He  that  committeth  sin  is  of  the  devil:  for  the  devil 
sinneth  from  the  beginning.  For  this  purpose  the  Son  of 
God  was  manifested,  that  He  might  destroy  the  works  of 
the  devil. 

"Whosoever  is  born  of  God  doth  not  commit  sin ;  for  his 
seed  remaineth  in  him:  and  he  cannot  sin,  because  he  is 
born  of  God." 

Now  we  come  to  the  test :  *'In  this  the  children  of  God 
are  manifest,  and  the  children  of  the  devil."  So  you 
see  that  there  is  a  difference.  Some  of  us  have  not 
recognised  this  yet.  We  are  so  blind  that  we  cannot 
see  this  difference.  We  are  so  fast  asleep,  so  encased 
in  our  own  selfish,  easygoing  lives,  that  we  do  not  see. 
The  devil  has  thrown  us  into  a  stupor.  We  do  not 
realise  the  difference  which  God  points  out.  Some- 
times we  are  anxious  to  get  people  into  what  we  call 
"the  Church'^  and  have  not  emphasised  this  difference  ; 
we  have  not  made  candidates  for  church  membership 
realise  what  it  really  means  to  come  into  fellowship 
with  the  people  of  God. 

"In   this  the  children  of   God  are  manifest."     In 


THE  MARKS  OF  THE  NEW  BIRTH  35 

what?  Read  the  ninth  verse,  and  you  find  the  ex- 
planation. ^'Whosoever  is  born  of  God  doth  not 
commit  sin.  .  .  .  He  cannot  sin  because  he  is  born  of 
God.  In  this  the  children  of  God  are  manifest,  and  the 
children  of  the  devil."  In  what  ?  In  their  attitude  to- 
ward right  and  wrong.  In  their  love  for  the  one  and 
their  hatred  for  the  other.  In  this  the  children  of  God 
are  revealed — recognised.  "He  that  doeth  righteous- 
ness is  righteous,  even  as  He  is  righteous.  He  that 
committeth  sin  is  of  the  devil,  for  the  devil  sinneth 
from  the  beginning.'* 

Before  you  call  yourself  a  "child  of  God"  see  to  it 
that  you  examine  your  own  heart ;  see  that  your  heart 
comes  up  to  the  test.  Measure  yourself  by  the  Word 
of  God,  by  the  light  of  God,  by  the  demands  of  Cal- 
vary, by  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Be  honest 
with  the  test.  Compare  yourself  with  these  qualifi- 
cations and  say,  "Dare  I,  in  the  face  of  such  condi- 
tions, hope  to  walk  with  God?"  Am  I  a  constant 
witness  to  the  cleansing  power  of  the  precious  blood? 
Have  I  got  the  witness  of  the  Spirit?  Have  I  turned 
my  back  upon  the  things  which  are  not  of  God? 
Have  I  thrown  out  of  my  life  the  things  which  God 
does  not  approve?  Am  I  honestly  seeking  to  obey 
the  Hght?  "In  this  the  children  of  God  are  manifest, 
and  the  children  of  the  devil."  The  difference  between 
the  saved  man  and  the  unsaved  man  is  that  the  saved 
man  runs  from  sin;  the  unsaved  man  runs  after  it. 
The  saved  man  hates  sin;  the  unsaved  man  loves  it. 
The  saved  man  resists  the  devil ;  the  unsaved  man  goes 
after  him  and  says,  "Can  you  give  me  a  job,  old  gen- 
tleman?"    He  seeks  the  devil,  the  things  of  the  devil. 


$6  REAL  RELIGION 

This  is  what  every  man  does  who  is  not  saved.  I 
appeal  to  your  judgment.  A  man  stands  revealed  by 
the  things  he  does.  People  came  to  talk  to  Jesus  and 
the  question  was  asked,  "Do  you  know  to  whom  you 
are  talking?"  The  reply  was,  *We  have  Abraham  for 
our  father."  Jesus  said,  "Ye  are  of  your  father,  the 
devil,  and  his  work  ye  do."  The  work  a  man  does 
settles  to  whom  he  belongs.  "In  this  the  children  of 
God  are  manifest."  There  is  the  difference, — in 
your  attitude  toward  light,  in  your  attitude  toward 
darkness.  How  do  you  stand  with  God  ?  I  do  not  ask 
how  you  stand  with  the  Church,  or  with  some  other 
religious  institution.  I  am  appealing  to  something 
deeper  and  more  important  than  that.  I  am  not  asking 
if  you  stand  all  right  with  men.  I  am  asking  if  you  are 
standing  right  with  God.  Because  that  is  what  makes 
the  difference.  "In  this  the  children  of  God  are  mani- 
fest; and  the  children  of  the  devil." 

Whose  company  have  you  been  keeping  to-day? 
What  kind  of  letters  did  you  write?  What  did  you 
say  to  your  stenographer  when  you  were  alone  to- 
gether? If  you  are  a  man  of  God  you  will  treat  that 
girl  with  as  much  respect  as  you  treat  your  own 
mother  or  daughter.  In  your  attitude  toward  right 
and  in  your  attitude  toward  wrong  you  will  stand 
revealed.  The  child  of  God  cannot  (mark  the  word 
— cannot)  commit  sin!  This  does  not  mean  you  can- 
not do  wrong  if  you  want  to.  It  means  that  you 
won't  want  to!    That  is  where  the  "cannot"  comes  in. 

I  saw  a  mother  a  little  while  ago,  with  a  baby  in 
her  arms.  If  I  had  gone  to  her  and  told  her  to  throw 
her  little  one  on  the  floor  she  would  have  said,  "I  can- 


THE  MARKS  OF  THE  NEW  BIRTH  S7 

not!"  She  had  sufficient  strength  to  do  it,  and  -imple 
opportunity  to  do  it,  but  the  more  I  urged  and  in- 
sisted, the  more  emphatic  she  would  be  in  her  refusal. 
Of  course,  she  could  do  it  if  she  wanted  to  do  it;  but 
she  did  not  want  to  hurt  the  child.  That  mother  had 
something  in  her  heart  which  would  prevent  her  harm- 
ing the  child.  What  was  that?  Love!  Exactly! 
When  a  child  of  God  is  tempted  to  do  wrong,  he  says, 
"I  cannot."  I  love  God!  That  is  what  the  apostle  j 
means!  He  "cannot."  He  is  born  again.  In  this,  I  f 
am  the  sworn  enemy  of  wrong.  If  I  am  the  child 
of  God,  I  cannot  compromise  with  wrong,  I  cannot 
give  in  to  it,  anywhere — in  the  church  or  out  of  it — 
in  the  home  or  in  the  world.  That  is  the  inevitable 
attitude  of  the  child  of  God.  I  know  this  is  a  strong 
statement,  but  it  is  not  too  strong.  I  am  not  making 
it  stronger  than  the  New  Testament  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  make  it.  "In  this  the  children  of  God  are 
manifest." 

A  word  about  the  certainty  of  this  knowledge.  I 
do  not  believe  in  that  mongrel  doctrine  which  implies 
that  you  can  be  a  Christian  without  knowing  it.  If 
you  can  get  religion  without  knowing  it,  you  can  lose 
it  without  missing  it.  You  did  not  get  married  with- 
out knowing  it.  There  are  three  classes  of  people  in 
every  church.  Ask  one  class  if  they  are  "born  again" 
and  they  will  say,  "I  hope  so."  You  don't  "hope"  you 
have  had  your  dinner,  do  you?  What  a  man  is  he 
does  not  "hope  to  be."  A  man  only  hopes  for  what 
he  has  not  got  already.  If  I  put  this  same  question 
to  another  class  of  people  they  will  say,  "Well,  I  would 
not  like  to  be  sure."     But  the  New  Testament  wants 


S8  REAL  RELIGION 

them  to  be  sure.  In  the  certainty  of  new  birth  the 
child  of  God  is  revealed.  "I  would  not  like  to  be  sure, 
but  I  think  I  am!"  Do  you  belong  to  the  '1-think- 
so^s?" 

There  is  still  another  class,  and  one  to  which  I 
belong;  those  who  positively  know.  Ask  any  member 
of  this  class  if  he  or  she  is  born  again  and  there  is 
a  new  light  upon  their  faces  as  they  reply,  ''Glory  to 
God,  I  know  I  am!"  These  are  the  people  who  keep 
the  Church  alive!  They  are  the  best  people  in  any 
church;  the  people  who  will  attend  prayer-meetings. 
In  this — the  knowledge  of  things,  the  assurance  of 
things,  the  children  of  God  are  manifest.  When  I 
was  converted  I  knew  it.  I  was  sure  of  it.  So,  also, 
is  everybody  who  is  born  again. 

I  was  talking  to  some  travelling  men  once  on  board 
a  train.  They  were  playing  cards.  I  overheard  some- 
thing said  about  Christian  people,  and  about  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  They  were  saying  things  not  very  com- 
plimentary. Then  they  said  something  about  Jesus. 
I  said,  "Steady,  there,  friends!  Don't  say  anything 
about  Him !  What  do  you  know  of  Him  ?  He  is  the 
best  friend  I  ever  had  in  the  world.  He  came  to  me 
when  I  was  nobody  and  saved  me.  The  joy  of  His 
presence  is  in  my  soul  at  this  moment,  and  it  is  more 
than  I  can  put  into  words.**  One  of  them  said,  *'You 
are  dreaming!"  I  said,  "Am  I?  Then  for  God's  sake 
hush!  Do  not  wake  me!  Let  me  dream  on!  Wak- 
ing would  bring  such  awful  loneliness  and  pain !"  But 
I  was  not  dreaming.  It  is  a  fact  of  eternity  that  Christ 
died,  and  rose  from  the  dead  for  my  justification  and 
I  know  it.    Thank  God  for  this  knowledge  of  things 


THE  MARKS  OF  THE  NEW  BIRTH  39 

— this  absolute  assurance.  Do  you  know  it  ?  Are  you 
sure  of  it?  "In  this  the  children  of  God  are  mani- 
fest/' revealed,  recognised.  If  you  don't  know  it, 
ask  why  you  have  not  received  an  assurance  of  the 
new  birth.  If  you  don't  know  it,  one  of  two  things 
must  be  true.  You  are  hugging  some  sin  or  doubt. 
If  you  have  honestly  surrendered,  you  will  trust  Jesus. 
If  you  try  to  trust  Him  before  surrendering,  the  trust 
won't  work.  It  is  killed  by  the  affection  for  the 
wrong.  Let  the  wrong  go  and  then  you  will  be  able 
to  trust  Him,  and  your  trust  in  Him  will  bring  cer- 
tainty. 

I  wonder  if  you  will  understand  me.  The  people 
who  are  born  where  a  language  is  spoken  all  under- 
stand it.  If  you  are  only  connected  with  a  church, 
without  the  new  life,  you  will  not  understand  what  I 
am  talking  about.  I  was  preaching  in  one  very  large 
city  some  time  ago  and  at  the  close  of  the  service  a 
lady  came  to  me  and  said,  "Do  you  know  we  have  an 
encampment  of  gipsies  out  in  one  of  the  suburbs? 
Would  you  like  to  see  them  ?  I  said,  "I  am  going  to 
see  them  if  they  are  there.''  Next  morning  she  took 
me  out  to  see  the  encampment.  When  we  reached  a 
little  rise  in  the  road  where  we  could  see  the  wagons 
and  the  tents  I  turned  to  her  and  said,  "There  is  not 
a  gipsy  there!"  "But,"  said  she,  "there  are  the 
wagons  and  the  tents!"  "Yes,"  said  I,  "but  they 
are  not  gipsy  wagons,  or  gipsy  tents.  There  is  a 
unique  style  about  the  wagons  and  the  tents  of  the 
real  gipsies  which  is  lacking  there.  A  gipsy  would  not 
have  a  tent  like  those;  or  a  wagon  like  those."  The 
lady  replied,  "Well,  I  am  surprised.     I  thought  all 


40  REAL  RELIGION 

people  who  lived  in  wagons  were  gipsies."  When  we 
got  right  up  to  the  encampment,  we  alighted,  and  I 
walked  in  and  began  to  speak  in  my  mother  tongue. 
Hearing  a  strange  voice  they  looked  at  me  but  they 
did  not  understand  me.  There  was  one  woman  among 
them  who  was  quick  enough  to  size  up  the  situation 
and  she  said,  "I  know  you,  you  are  the  gipsy  preacher. 
I  was  not  born  a  gipsy  but  I  just  joined  them."  I 
said,  "If  you  had  been  born  a  gipsy  you  would  have 
understood  my  language."  And  that  is  just  the  dif- 
ference between  joining  the  Church  and  being  born  in 
it — in  becoming  a  new  creature  in  Christ  Jesus.  Do 
you  see  that  now?  "In  this  the  children  of  God  are 
manifest."  In  this  certainty,  this  knowledge,  this  as- 
surance of  the  soul — the  new  birth.  But  if  you  cannot 
point  to  the  very  spot  where  it  happened — if  you 
cannot  fix  the  time  to  the  minute — ^just  say,  "Jesus, 
I  love  you!"  Here  is  the  Scripture  for  that  invita- 
tion: "He  that  loveth  is  born  of  God."  Blessed  be 
His  name.  In  the  certainty  of  it,  in  the  assurance  of 
it,  the  sunshine  of  it,  the  gladness  of  it,  the  abounding 
joy  of  it,  the  children  of  God  are  manifest. 

"Yes,"  but  you  say,  "I  want  to  be  a  little  more 
sure!"  Well,  let  me  give  you  some  new  birth-marks. 
They  are  always  to  be  found  on  the  child  of  God. 
Here  is  the  first.  He  that  is  born  again  abideth  in 
Him.  Is  that  mark  on  youf  Have  you  got  your 
roots  and  springs  in  Jesus?  Is  your  very  life  in 
Jesus?  Tennyson  was  once  walking  with  a  friend 
through  his  garden  when  the  friend  said  to  him,  "What 
is  Jesus  Christ  to  you  ?"  Tennyson  pointed  to  a  lovely 
little  pansy  growing  at  his  feet  and  replied,  "Just  what 


THE  MARKS  OF  THE  NEW  BIRTH  41 

the  sun  is  to  the  Hfe  of  that  Uttle  flower.  That  is  what 
Jesus  is  to  me.  He  is  my  all  in  all."  Can  you  say 
that  ?  Can  you  say,  "Begone,  vain  world,  thou  hast  no 
charms  for  me?"  Or  does  the  world  and  its  charms 
still  allure  you  ?  Here  is  another  birth-mark !  He  that 
is  born  of  God,  overcometh  the  world!  I  was  speak- 
ing to  a  young  girl  some  time  ago  and  she  said,  "I  am 
concerned  about  my  soul.  I  want  to  be  a  Christian!" 
Then  she  pointed  to  her  companions,  six  of  them,  all 
daughters  of  wealthy  parents.  ^'Something  tells  me 
that  I  cannot  go  on  living  an  idle  frivolous  life" — 
she  said — *'but  if  I  change — must  I  give  them  up?" 
"Not  if  you  are  really  converted,"  I  said,  "they  will 
give  you  up  instead."  Was  I  right?  I  know  I  was 
— and  you  know  it  too.  It  is  not  my  business  to 
preach  a  milk-and-water  gospel.  You  would  despise 
a  man  who  is  afraid  to  tell  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ 
Jesus.  And  here  is  what  God's  Book  says — "If  any 
man  love  the  world,  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  in 
Him."  Here  is  another  birth-mark!  He  that  is  born 
of  God  loveth  his  brethren !  "He  that  loveth  not  know- 
eth  not  God,  for  God  is  Love."  Is  that  mark  on 
you?  Or  are  you  cynical,  critical,  unkind,  spiteful? 
"Whosoever  doeth  not  righteousness  is  not  of  God, 
neither  is  he  that  loveth  not  his  brother."  Is  that 
mark  upon  you  ?  I  pause  that  you  may  examine  your 
own  heart  in  the  light  of  His  workings. 

Here  is  still  another  birth-mark!  He  that  is  born 
of  God  keepeth  himself  in  the  love  of  God.  If  you 
were  a  gardener  and  had  a  beautiful  flower  which  you 
were  trying  to  bring  to  perfection  with  the  aid  of  arti- 
ficial heat,  you  would  know  that  your  plant  required 


42  REAL  RELIGION 

a  certain  temperature — or  it  would  not  thrive,  nor 
grow.  The  temperature  must  suit  its  needs,  or  the 
plant  would  be  lost.  So  he  that  is  born  of  God, 
keepeth  himself  in  the  love  of  God,  lest  he  lose  the 
plant  which  God  has  rooted  in  him.  "In  this  the  chil- 
dren of  God  are  manifest." 

Can  I  explain  these  things  to  you?  Ask  the  little 
daisy  to  explain  the  sun,  and  what  do  you  think  it  will 
say?  If  it  had  a  voice,  I  know  what  it  would  say. 
It  would  say,  "No!  I  cannot  explain  the  sun,  but  I 
shall  be  very  grateful  to  you  if  you  will  stand  out 
of  the  way  and  let  it  shine  upon  me."  "O  Sun  of 
Righteousness,"  shine  Thou  upon  us. 

One  other  birth-mark!  "He  that  believeth  on  the 
Son  of  God  hath  the  witness  in  himself  ...  ye  have 
received  the  spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  we  say  Abba, 
Father."  I  shall  never  forget  when  the  first  baby  came 
to  my  house.  I  was  a  very  young  father.  Babies  were 
a  new  thing  to  me.  I  wanted  that  one  to  walk 
before  it  could  stand,  and  it  looked  for  the  first  few 
weeks  as  if  I  were  forgotten  entirely — for  baby 
and  mother  were  one.  Mother  was  baby's  world; 
baby  was  mother's  world.  Young  fathers  know  all 
about  it.  They  have  seen  it — and  the  older  ones 
too.  The  dearest  sight  this  side  the  "gates  of  pearl" 
is  a  pure  mother  with  her  first  baby.  She  lives 
for  it  day  and  night.  She  dreams  of  it.  She  watches 
the  little  one  day  by  day,  cares  for  it;  yes,  just 
"mothers"  it,  and  so  the  weeks  and  months  pass  until, 
one  day,  to  your  great  surprise,  coaxed  and  taught  by 
mother,  the  baby  says  "Da-da!"  Just  like  that!  God's 
great  nursing  mother!     The  Holy  Spirit  comes  into 


THE  MARKS  OF  THE  NEW  BIRTH  43 

the  newly-surrendered,  trustful  heart,  and  teaches  it 
to  say,  ''Abba,  Father !''  "In  this  the  children  of  God 
are  manifest."  Have  you  got  that?  Is  that  your 
experience?  Do  you  long  for  it?  Are  you  hungry 
for  it?  Are  you  crying  for  it?  It  is  within  your 
reach,  if  you  will  but  pay  the  price.  God  help  you 
to  do  so.  Mercy's  door  is  open  to  you  now.  The 
gifts  of  God  are  yours  for  the  asking.  Turn  to  God, 
to  Calvary,  and  the  new  life.  I  cannot  do  this  for 
you — you  must  do  it  for  yourselves.  Do  it  now,  and 
then  men  and  women  will  say  of  you  that  you  bear 
upon  your  body,  yea,  and  in  your  soul,  the  new  birth- 
marks of  a  child  of  God.    God  help  you. 


IV 
THE  SPIRIT-FILLED  LIFE 


THE  SPIRIT-FILLED  LIFE 

Text:   "Howbeit  when  He,  the   Spirit  of  Truth,  is 
come,  He  will  guide  you  into  all  truth." 

St.  John.    Chapter  i6.  Verse  ij. 

Quietly  and  reverently  I  want  to  speak  to  you 
about  the  greatest  power  in  the  world — the  power  of 
God's  Holy  Spirit.  The  great  need  of  the  Church 
to-day  is  a  fresh  baptism  of  that  power ;  another  Pen- 
tecost which  shall  bring  men  and  women  in  thousands 
*'bound  with  gold  chains  to  the  feet  of  God." 

I  often  wonder  whether,  to-day.  Christians  realise 
what  that  power  really  is — if  they  do  rightful  honour 
to  the  Third  Person  in  the  Holy  Trinity.  I  went  to 
visit  an  old  saint  of  God  some  time  ago.  He  had 
been  in  bed  for  years,  but  he  is  mentally  alive  to  the 
need  of  his  day  and  generation,  and  has  a  wonderfiil 
insight  into  the  things  that  belong  to  God,  and  to  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  He  keeps  in  constant  touch  with 
the  forward  march  of  Christ's  army.  Just  before  I  left 
him  he  said  to  me,  "What  do  you  think  the  Church 
of  God  needs  more  than  anything  else  in  the  world 
to-day?"  I  said,  "Another  Pentecost!"  He  thought 
a  little  while  and  then  said,  "Yes!  And  after  that?" 
"Another  Pentecost !"  I  replied.  Then  he  asked,  "And 
what  then,  do  you  think?"  I  said,  "Still  another 
Pentecost !" 

I  know  that  my  answer  was  the  right  one.  More 
than  ever  to-day  do  we,  as  church  members,  need  to 

47 


/ 


48  REAL  RELIGION 

realise  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  our  midst; 
to  apply  the  power  of  that  Spirit  to  the  work  of  win- 
ning men  and  women  for  God.  We  preachers  ought 
to  preach  more  than  we  do  about  the  Spirit  and  His 
Power.  How  many  sermons  do  you  hear  in  a  year  on 
the  Person  of  the  Holy  Spirit?  We  preachers  should 
make  constant  reference  to  the  power  of  Pentecost. 
If  you  are  a  *'sermon-taster"  in  the  best  sense  of  that 
phrase,  and  if  you  read  volumes  of  sermons,  you  must 
be  impressed  by  the  fact  that  for  every  one  sermon 
preached  and  published  on  the  Person  and  Power  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  there  are  hundreds  preached  and  pub- 
lished on  all  other  subjects  imaginable.  And  I  picked 
up  a  Church  Hymnal  the  other  day,  with  one  thou- 
sand hymns  in  it,  and  turned  to  those  specially  dedi- 
cated to  the  Holy  Spirit  and  found  that  these  num- 
bered but  twenty-five  in  the  whole  collection.  Yet  the 
presence  and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  vital  and 
fundamental  to  the  growth  and  development  of  the 
Church  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Without  the  Holy  Ghost  there  is  no  Church:  no 
life,  pulsating,  energising  power  to  lead  men  and 
women  to  Jesus  and  keep  them  in  contact  with  saving 
grace.  Without  the  Holy  Ghost  we  mi^ht  as  well 
burn  up  our  churches  and  our  Bibles  and  give  up 
playing  with  religion.  Yet  we  often  seem  to  think 
that  we  can  leave  the  Holy  Ghost  out  of  our  Church 
programme  and  that  explains  why  we  also  find  that 
the  Church  is  cold,  dead  and  without  fruit. 

I  wonder  what  would  happen  if  Paul  came  and 
preached  in  some  of  our  Churches  and  felt  our 
spiritual  pulse,  what  would  he  say?     He  would  say 


THE  SPIRIT-FILLED  LIFE  49 

what  he  said  to  the  Church  at  Ephesus.  He  would 
know  there  was  something  lacking  in  our  Christian 
life  and  service  and  would  ask,  *'Did  ye  receive  the 
Holy  Ghost  when  ye  believed?"  And  some  of  us,  like 
those  Ephesians,  would  have  to  admit  that  we  had 
not  heard  of  Him.  Yet  it  is  the  Holy  Ghost  Who 
opens  the  eyes  of  the  blind;  Who  heals  the  broken- 
hearted; Who  uplifts  the  fallen;  and  Who  gives  to 
weak,  erring  mortals  strength,  grace  and  courage  to 
tread  the  highways  of  life  with  the  feet  of  those  who 
conquer. 

Do  you  know  the  Holy  Spirit?  Jesus  said,  "It  is 
expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away,  for  if  I  do  not  go 
away,  the  Comforter  will  not  come  unto  you,  but  if 
I  depart,  I  will  send  Him  unto  you."  "It  is  expedient 
for  you  that  I  go."  Do  you  realise  that?  Christ  also 
said,  "Greater  works  than  these  shall  ye  do  because  I 
go  to  My  Father."  Christ  knew  He  was  going  to  send 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  essential 
gift  of  God  the  Father  and  God  the  Son  to  the  Church 
on  earth:  and  to  the  loving,  obedient  hearts  of  those 
who  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  When  the  Holy 
Ghost  comes  to  you,  you  will  know  about  it.  Life 
will  never  be  exactly  the  same  to  you  afterwards. 
Your  life  will  be  fuller,  sweeter,  more  lovable,  more 
gracious  than  ever  before.  You  will  be  a  more  con-  I 
spicuous  Christian — or,  if  I  may  put  it  in  another  j 
way,  more  conspicuously  Christian.  The  moment 
God's  Holy  Spirit  enters  the  human  heart  and  takes 
abode  there,  life  is  what  it  ought  to  be,  peaceful,  fruit- 
ful, pure  and  Christ-like. 

Jesus  came  to  earth  to  reveal  the  Father.     What 


50  REAL  RELIGION 

a  wonderful  revelation  He  gave  of  the  character  and 
attributes  of  our  loving  God.  The  Holy  Ghost  came 
to  reveal  Jesus,  Whom*  to  know  is  life  eternal;  to 
interpret  His  mind  to»  us,  and  to  teach  us  His  will. 
No  man  has  heard  Jesus  but  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  No 
man  can  understand  Jesus,  but  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
No  man  will  ever  see  Jesus  unless  the  Holy  Ghost 
touches  his  eyes  and  clarifies  his  vision.  You  cannot 
know  your  Lord  in  any  way  but  by  the  way  of  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

Jesus  came  to  reveal  the  Father,  I  say,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  has  come  to  reveal  Jesus  to  the  world.  But  who 
shall  reveal  the  Holy  Ghost  to  the  world?  Who  but 
the  men  and  women  in  whose  hearts  the  Holy  Spirit 
reigns  and  rules?  It  is  when  you  show  by  your  life 
and  conduct  that  you  have  received  the  Holy  Ghost, 
that  you.  possess  iayour  life  a  presence  and  power  not 
of  this  world,  when  men  and  women  recognise  in  you 
a  likeness  to  your  risen  Lord,  it  is  then  that  the  Holy 
Spirit  will  be  revealed  to  those  who  know  Him  not. 

You  may  as  well  strive  to  bore  a  hole  through  a 
stone  wall  with  a  candle  as  to  expect  sinners  to  be 
converted  apart  from  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
But  the  Church  which  possesses  that  power  will  be- 
come as  terrible  as  an  army  with  banners  against  the 
hosts  of  sin.  The  world  will  know  that  you  possess 
it  and  if  the  Holy  Ghost  is  in  your  own  heart,  every- 
body around  you,  and  those  nearest  to  you  especially, 
will  realise  your  influence  and  power. 
"^  Are  you  making  anybody  in  your  own  home  realise 
that  you  know  God?  If  not  your  religion  is  not  a 
real  religion;  it  is  an  illusion,  a  deception.     But  the 


THE  SPIRIT^FILLED  LIFE  51 

Holy  Ghost  can  produce  in  you  the  likeness  to  Christ, 
and  the  winsomeness  of  Christ,  His  love  for  holiness^ 
His  love  for  the  brethren,  His  desire  to  heal  and  save. 
All  the  meannessin^yourJieaTt  wi  go.  All  the  ugli- 
ness in  your  character  will  disappear.  All  the  thorns 
and  nettles  in  what  should  be  God's  garden  will  be 
rooted  up  and  done  away  with..  You  will  become  pure 
and  sweet  and  calm  and  tender  and  attractive  in  all 
your  ways.  Best  of  all,  you  will  commend  Christ  by 
the  goodness  of  your  life  and  character  wherever  you 
go.  That  is  how  the  Holy  Ghost,  working  in  you  and 
through  you,  reveals  Christ  to  sinful  men. 

It  is  a  wonderful  thing  to  know  and  reveal  Jesus. 
It  is  a  wonderful  thing  to  have  a  soul  and  body  which 
are  not  a  tomb  of  buried  possibilities,  but  a  temple  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Do  you  want  to  know  the  secret  of 
the  barrenness  of  your  life;  of  its  weakness;  of  its 
joylessness ;  of  your  spiritual  unattractiveness  and  lack 
of  wooing  power  ?  Is  it  not  because  you  are-  not  obe- 
dient to  the  Holy  Ghost?  The  Spirit  will  not  stay 
with  the  disobedient  disciple.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  given 
to  them  that  obey.  The  disobedient  man  cannot  walk 
with  God.  The  Holy  Spirit  cannot  live  in  a  heart 
that  is  filled  with  thoughts  of  the  world,  and  the-  desire 
for  worldly  things.  How  can  you  expect  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  abide  in  your  heart  if  you  neglect  the  oppor- 
tunities for  Christian  fellowship  and  worship  on  the 
Sabbath  Day?  How  can  you  expect  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  abide  in  your  heart  if  you  take  Communion  on 
Sunday  morning  and  go  to  the  pictures  on  Sunday 
night?  How  can  you  expect  the  Holy  Spirit  to  abide 
in  your  heart  if  you  prefer  the  jazz-ball  to  the  prayer- 


52  REAL  RELIGION 

meeting?  How  can  you  expect  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  abide  in  your  heart  amid  the  sordid  excite- 
ment of  the  race-meeting?  How  can  you  expect 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  abide  in  your  heart  if  your 
thoughts  and  desires  are  unholy  and  unclean?  Re- 
member that  in  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  there  is 
no  opportunity  to  sit  on  the  fence,  or  to  run  with  the 
hare  and  hunt  with  the  hounds.  To  attempt  to  claim 
fellowship  with  the  Holy  Spirit  and  with  ''the  god  of 
this  world"  is  sheer  blasphemy.  The  Holy  Ghost 
must  reign  in  your  heart  and  life  solely  if  you  are  to 
possess  His  fulness,  His  grace,  and  His  power.  You 
cannot  serve  Christ  one  day  and  the  devil  the  next. 
You  cannot  hold  on  to  Christ  with  one  hand  and  to| 
Satan's  black  paw  with  the  other.  The  Spirit-fillec 
life  is  not  a  life  like  that. 

Listen,  'Touch  not  the  unclean  thing,  and  I  will 
receive  you  and  be  a  Father  unto  you."  Note  the 
promise  and  the  conditions.  If  you  want  the  Holy 
Ghost  to  come  and  take  possession  of  you,  you  must 
pay  the  price.  You  must  get  rid  of  the  things  He 
cannot  be  with.  I  know  that  will  mean  sacrifice,  but 
it  also  means  Christ.  I  never  will  preach  a  cheap 
religion !  I  cannot  preach  compromise  with  the  truth 
of  God !  It  is  my  business  and  yours  to  maintain  the 
standard  of  the  Cross  and  to  aim  at  the  heights.  God 
help  us  to  do  it.  We  must  have  ideals  in  life.  We 
must  shake  the  dust  from  our  feet.  We  must  put  on 
our  beautiful  garments.  We  must  learn  the  secret  of 
holiness.  We  must  strive  to  become  worthy  to  walk 
with  God.  The  Holy  Ghost  will  make  all  these  things 
possible  to  us.    We  cannot  do  them  of  ourselves,  but 


THE  SPIRIT-FILLED  LIFE  5S 

the  Holy  Ghost  which  dwelleth  in  us  shall  do  this  for 
us,  and  more. 

Now  let  me  again  ask  you,  ''Did  you  receive  the 
Holy  Ghost  when  you  believed?"  Would  it  not  make 
a  wonderful  difference  to  our  Church,  to  the  place  in 
which  we  live,  and  to  the  place  where  we  work,  if 
we  were  people  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost?  Would 
it  not  make  a  wonderful  difference  if  every  preacher 
in  our  churches,  and  every  office-bearer  and  every 
member  of  the  Church  lived  the  spirit-filled  life?  If 
our  Church  and  all  within  it  were  imbued  with  Spirit 
power  from  on  high,  we  should  have  Pentecostal  days 
and  Pentecostal  ways  all  over  again.  "And  when  the 
days  of  Pentecost  were  fully  come  .  .  .  they  were  all 
filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  began  to  speak  with 
other  tongues  as  the  Spirit  gave  them  utterance." 

When  that  glad  day  comes  once  again,  the  whole 
city  in  which  you  live  will  be  on  its  knees  crying  foif 
mercy.  Then,  when  you  pray,  you  will  be  doing  much 
more  than  saying  your  prayers.  You  will  not  pray 
for  men  to  hear  you.  You  will  walk  and  talk  with 
God.  You  will  wrestle  with  the  Angel  of  the  Cove- 
nant for  the  souls  of  sinful  men.  You  will  challenge 
God  with  the  might  of  prevailing  faith,  and  find  Him 
abundantly  able  to  do  for  you  more  than  you  can 
either  ask  or  think. 

Have  you  heard  the  legend  which  represents  the 
devil  in  the  garb  of  a  friar  preaching  the  gospel?  It 
relates  that  an  old  saint  put  the  question  to  him, 
"What  you,  the  devil,  preaching  the  gospel?"  And 
the  devil  replied,  "Don't  you  know  that  there  is  noth- 
ing so  hardening  and  damning  as  preaching  the  gospel 


S4  REAL  RELIGION 

without  unction,  and  as  I  have  none,  my  preaching  will 
only  be  the  savour  of  death/'  The  great  need  of  all 
Christians  to-day  is  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Holy  Ghost 
makes  the  Saint.  The  Holy  Ghost  makes  men  and 
women  fearless  of  the  devil.  And  when  you  get  filled 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  you  will  not  need  other  men  to 
preach  to  you  and  for  you.  You  will  be  doing  the 
preaching  yourselves.  You  will  be  wooing  and  win- 
ning others  into  the  Kingdom. 

How  will  He  coipe?  How  shall  you  know  of  His 
coming  ?  Listen !  /Some  years  ago  a  young  artist  was 
trying  hard  to  paint  a  picture  which  should  be  his 
masterpiece,  and  worthy  of  his  master,  whom  he 
loved.  The  master  was  away,  and  the  young  student 
worked  hard  to  have  the  picture  completed  before  his 
return,  but  something  always  went  wrong — he  could 
not  adequately  express  his  thoughts  upon  the  canvas. 
One  morning  he  arrived  at  the  studio  early,  and  upon 
withdrawing  the  covering  from  the  unfinished  paint- 
ing, was  thrilled  and  delighted  to  find  that  the  picture 
was  complete  and  perfect.  Turning  quietly  to  his 
fellow-students  he  said,  "The  Master  has  come !  Only 
his  hand  could  have  made  the  picture  so  perfect." 
That  is  how  the  Spirit  of  Christ  will  come  into  your 
heart  and  life,  and  this  is  what  He  will  do.  He  will 
perfect  all  your  imperfections  and  transfer  your 
highest  dreams  for  yourself  upon  the  canvas  of  your 
daily  life.  May  you  awake  even  now  to  the  fact  that 
He  is  with  you  and  declare  to  the  world  about  you 
that  "The  Master  has  come."  He  who  will  make  out 
of  your  crude,  imperfect  character,  a  masterpiece  of 
grace  for  His  glory^ 


V 

THE  MODEL  CHRISTIAN 


THE  MODEL  CHRISTIAN 

Texts:  "And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  as  the  people 
pressed  upon  him  to  hear  the  word  of  God,  He  stood  by 
the  lake  of  Gennesaret, 

"And  saw  two  ships  standing  by  the  lake :  bub  the  fish- 
ermen were  gone  out  of  them,  and  were  washing  their 
nets." 

St  Luke,    Chapter  5,  Verses  i  and  2, 

Please  notice  they  were  washing  their  own  nets. 
Some  people  have  been  washing  mine  for  years,  and 
I  should  like  to  suggest  they  pay  a  little  more  atten- 
tion to  their  own.  Men  and  women  who  mind  their 
own  business  often  succeed  because  they  have  but  few 
competitors. 

Net- washing  is  a  good  thing,  especially  if  the  fisher- 
men had  caught  nothing  recently. 

"And  He  entered  into  one  of  the  ships,  which  was 
Simon's,  and  prayed  him  that  he  would  thrust  out  a  little 
from  the  land.  And  he  sat  down,  and  taught  the  people  out 
of  the  ship. 

"Now  when  he  had  left  speaking,  he  said  unto  Simon, 
Launch  out  into  the  deep,  and  let  down  your  nets  for  a 
draught. 

"And  Simon  answering  said  unto  him,  Master,  we  have 
toiled  all  the  night,  and  have  taken  nothing" — 

^  Simon  was  a  Church  official,  and  so  he  said,  "We 
have  not  caught  anything  lately."    If  I  came  to  some 

67 


58  REAL  RELIGION- 

Church  officials  and  asked  them  if  they  had  caught  any 
converts  lately  they  might  reply  "No !  But  we  caught 
some  a  few  years  ago  and  have  been  trying  to  cure 
them  ever  since!'* 


"And  have  taken  nothing :  nevertheless  at  thy  word  I  will 
let  down  the  net. 

"And  when  they  had  this  done,  they  inclosed  a  great  multi- 
tude of  fishes;  and  their  net  brake. 

"And  they  beckoned  unto  their  partners,  which  were  in, 
the  other  ship,  that  they  should  come  and  help  them.-  And 
they  came,  and  filled  both  the  ships,  so  that  they  began  to 
sink. 

"When  Simon  Peter  saw  it,  he  fell  down  at  Jesus'  knees, 
saying,  Depart  from  me ;  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord.  .  .  . 

"And  Jesus  said  unto  Simon,  Fear  not:  from  henceforth 
thou  shalt  catch  men." 


Now  turn  back  to  the  first  verse: 

"The  people  pressed  upon  Him  to  hear  the  word 
of  God."  What  was  it  in  Jesus  which  made  Him 
so  attractive?  What  was  it  in  Him  that  made  the 
people  throng  round  Him?  How  was  it  that  they 
could  not  keep  away  from  Him? 

You  know  how,  in  the  olden  times,  the  prophets  of 
God  looked  down  through  the  ages  with  the  telescope 
of  faith ;  and  looked  forward  to  the  time  of  His  great 
appearing  and  said,  "Unto  Him  shall  the  gathering 
of  the  people  be."  And  when  He  came  He  said,  "If 
I  be  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men  unto 
Me."  Jesus  could  not  be  hid.  What  was  it  about 
this  man  that  made  Him  so  wonderful,  so  magnetic, 
so  majestic,  so  helpful,   and  so  transforming,  as  to 


THE  MODEL  CHRISTIAN  59 

give  hope  to  everybody  who  came  near  Him?  What 
was  it?  Do  we  not  need  that  quality — that  power? 
What  was  it  that  made  Jesus  the  centre  and  the  soul 
of  life  and  uplift  to  everybody  who  got  a  look  at  Him, 
or  came  somewhere  near  Him,  and  who  complied  with 
His  terms  and  conditions? 

Jesus  said,  'Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of 
Me."  "Learn  of  Mel"  You  and  I  who  profess  to 
love  Him  must  possess  the  same  qualities  which  made 
Him  so  attractive  and  so  lovable.  When  we  come 
anywhere  near  broken  manhood  and  womanhood, 
there  should  be  something  in  us  to  remind  others  of 
Him.  That  is  Religion!  That  is  the  religion  of  the 
New  Testament.  To  be  a  Christ  of  to-day  is  the 
need.  "For  me,  to  Hve  is  Christ."  The  word  "Chris- 
tian" means  "likeness  to  Him."  I  wonder  if  any  one 
wants  always  to  be  where  you  are?  I  wonder  if 
any  broken  heart  or  troubled  spirit  wants  to  take  your 
hand  or  to  look  into  your  face  and  catch  a  little  bit 
of  the  music  of  your  thoughts.  I  wonder  if  any  one 
wants  to  sit  for  a  while  in  your  soothing,  restful  pres- 
ence !  You  are  a  member  of  the  church.  Your  name 
is  on  the  Church  Roll.  You  have  declared  in  your 
most  positive  and  public  manner  which  side  you  are 
on.  You  take  Communion.  But  is  there  any  likeness 
in  you  to  your  Master  and  Lord  ? 

Church-going — what  does  it  mean?  Church-going 
is  to  make  you  more  like  Jesus.  Bible-reading 
is  to  make  you  more  like  Jesus.  Prayer,  communion, 
singing  songs  of  praise,  is  to  crystallise  men  and 
women  into  likeness  to  Him.  If  this  is  not  the  result 
of  your  religion,  it  is  ineffective — it  becomes  a  fraud 


60  REAL  RELIGION 

and  an  insult  to  humanity.  The  people  flocked 
to  Jesus,  they  crowded  around  Him ;  they  were  glad  to 
be  seen  about  Him,  and  to  hear  Him  speak.  If  Jesus 
came  to  the  city  to-morrow  morning,  if  it  were  known 
that  he  stood  somewhere  in  the  great  metropolis  with 
the  marks  of  the  nails  on  His  hands  and  the  open 
wound  in  His  side  and  the  thorn-crown  pressed 
upon  His  brow — the  people  would  not  rush  off  to  see 
the  races  or  to  witness  the  latest  sensation — ^they  would 
seek  Jesus.  I  know  they  would !  Wherever  Jesus  is, 
the  people  will  be.  When  Jesus  comes  to  a  city  or 
town,  a  hamlet,  a  church,  or  a  home,  and  is  enthroned 
there,  the  people  flock  to  greet  Him.  No  one  can 
keep  them  away!  Some  one  will  say,  ''How  is  it, 
then,  that  people  will  not  come  near  me?"  Is  it  not 
because  you  are  such  a  caricature  of  what  you  ought 
to  be?  Instead  of  being  like  Jesus,  you  are  unlike 
Him  in  every  respect. 

A  lady  once  said  to  me,  "Tell  me  where  I  am  wrong. 
I  am  not  a  Church-member  but  I  want  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian. There  are  moments  when  I  hunger  to  be  a  good 
woman:  when  I  thirst  to  be  an  out-and-out  Christian, 
just  as  my  Mother  used  to  be.  But  if  I  go  to  church 
I  see  the  same  people  there  as  myself — people  I  see 
everywhere  else.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  the  only  differ- 
ence between  some  of  these  people  and  myself  is  that 
they  take  Communion  and  their  names  are  on  the 
Church  Roll — and  mine  is  not.  If  I  go  to  a  dance 
they  are  there.  If  I  go  to  the  races,  they  are  there. 
Wherever  I  go  I  find  them.  I  do  not  want  to  get 
mixed  up  with  that  kind  of  religion.  If  I  get  religion 
at  all,  my  own  common-sense  tells  me  that  I  have  to 


THE  MODEL  CHRISTIAN  61 

try  to  be  like  Jesus !"  Exactly !  To  be  like  Jesus  is 
to  be  a  common-sense  Christian. 

A  young  girl  graduate  once  said  to  me,  '*I  want  to 
be  a  Christian.  My  father  and  mother  are  both 
Church-members,  both  dear,  good  people,  but  I  have 
never  heard  them  pray.  I  have  never  even  heard  them 
asking  a  blessing  at  the  meal-table.  I  cannot  go  to  my 
father  and  mother  and  talk  to  them  about  my  soul." 
Why?  Her  parents  were  not  like  Jesus,  who  prayed 
until  the  bloody  sweat  stood  out  upon  His  forehead 
on  the  night  of  Gethsemane.  If  your  child  cannot 
come  and  talk  with  you  about  the  deepest  and  most 
sacred  of  all  human  desires  and  emotions — the  high 
and  holy  things  of  the  Spirit,  which  affect  the  soul — 
come  in  the  most  critical  period  of  her  life  and  at  the 
most  important  psychological  moment  of  her  spiritual 
development — there  is  something  wrong  with  your  re- 
ligion, and  the  sooner  you  find  it  out  the  better.  You 
are  not  being  at  all  like  Jesus. 

If  Jesus  came  here,  would  anybody  go  to  Him? 
When  Jesus  comes  into  your  life  and  transforms  it 
and  makes  it  beautiful,  somebody  will  see  it,  somebody 
will  know.  For  there  is  nobody  quite  like  Jesus,  and 
when  He  comes  into  your  life,  He  is  there  and  you 
cannot  hide  Him.  If  He  is  lifted  up  in  your  life.  He 
will  attract.  You  will  be  easy  to  live  with.  The  ugly 
and  wicked  spirit  will  depart  and  you  will  be  calm  and 
loving,  gentle,  tender  and  gracious — like  Jesus. 

Little  children  will  know.  If  I  go  into  a  home  and 
a  little  child  climbs  upon  my  knee  I  thank  God.  H 
a  weary  man  in  a  strange  country  shakes  hands  with 
me,  I  am  complimented.    If  some  poor  woman  on  the 


62  REAL  RELIGION 

street — I  don't  mean  poor  in  pocket,  but  poor  in 
spirit — destitute  in  heart,  starved  in  soul,  poverty- 
stricken  in  will,  crowned  by  the  sin  of  lust  and  fast 
living — if  that  poor  woman,  once  pure  and  good, 
wanted  to  climb  out  of  the  gutter,  out  of  the  "Slough 
of  Despond,"  to  get  away  from  her  iniquity,  wanted  to 
talk  with  some  one  and  enquire  the  way  to  Jesus, 
would  she,  do  you  think,  come  and  knock  at  the  door 
of  your  beautiful  Gothic  Church?  Would  she?  I 
will  tell  you  where,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hun- 
dred, such  a  woman  would  go  to  find  Jesus — she 
would  go  to  the  Salvation  Army! 

Is  that  a  reflection  on  you — on  us?  We  were  here 
before  the  Salvation  Army  came  into  existence.  Has 
she  lost  faith  in  our  kind  of  religion?  If  so,  we  shall 
have  to  re-establish  faith  in  that  erring  woman's  heart 
and  mind,  and  we  shall  never  do  this  until  we  get 
right  with  Jesus  ourselves.  Would  to  God  that  every 
Church  could  revive  that  atmosphere  which  induces 
every  fallen  man  and  woman  to  exclaim,  "I  believe  in 
you!"  Unless  that  revival  does  come,  you  will  never 
do  all  the  good  you  might  do.  That  is  religion !  Little 
children  know.  If  your  religion  does  not  make  you 
tender,  gracious  and  considerate,  it  is  not  a  true  re- 
ligion. Suppose  some  poor  sinner — or  even  a  member 
of  your  Church  Board — were  to  come  to  you  and  say, 
"I  am  not  right!"  What  would  be  your  attitude 
toward  him?  Would  it  be  critical?  No  man  moves 
toward  God  unless  he  is  led  by  the  Spirit,  drawn  by 
the  Holy  Ghost.  When  he  does  come,  do  not  get  in 
his  way.  Don't  say  anything  to  him  that  will  hinder 
his  coming.     If  you  are  going  to  be  Christ-like  you 


THE  MODEL  CHRISTIAN  6S 

will  be  tender,  sensitive,  responsive,  alert  and  ready 
to  advise  and  help.  You  will  do  anything  to  bring  a 
sinful  man  or  woman  a  little  nearer  to  Jesus.  To  be 
Christ-like — that  is  Christianity.  Have  you  that  sort 
of  religion?  Can  you  pray  with  your  family?  If 
you  cannot,  what  is  the  trouble  ?  Can  you  kneel  down 
with  a  clear  conscience  in  the  presence  of  those  whom 
you  love,  and  who  love  you,  at  home?  It  is  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world,  for  a  man  or  woman  who 
is  right  with  God  to  pray.  God  save  little  children 
from  a  prayerless  home!  Can  you  pray?  You  can, 
if  you  are  like  Jesus.  Can  you  speak  to  your  friends 
and  neighbours  about  Christ  and  salvation,  and  about 
getting  right  with  God?  If  not,  why?  You  are  a 
Church  member.  What  has  sealed  your  lips?  What 
is  paralysing  your  heart?  What  is  strangling  your 
enthusiasm?  Is  it  the  paralysis  of  the  second  death? 
What  is  preventing  your  witness  for  Jesus?  If  you 
are  Christ-like — you  will  be  about  your  Father's  busi- 
ness. The  world  is  looking  at  you.  Angels  and  a 
cloud  of  witnesses  are  looking  on  from  the  battlements 
of  the  sky.  Some  day  God  Himself,  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit,  will  demand  from  you  an  ex- 
planation of  your  service.  If  you  are  like  Jesus  you 
will  bear  your  witness  for  our  Father,  God. 

Christ-likeness  is  a  wonderful  thing.  You  know  it 
when  you  see  it.  The  way  to  get  right  with  God  is 
to  get  rid  of  something,  to  get  rid  of  self,  and  sin, 
and  of  the  world.  When  you  get  there,  you  will  begin 
to  be  like  Him.  When  you  come  to  Him  In  truth  vou 
will  be  rid  of  pride;  church-pride,  as  well  as  worldly 
pride;  and  of  love   for  the  church's  reputation,  and 


64  REAL  RELIGION 

love  for  your  own  respectability.  That  is  helping  to 
keep  people  from  Christ  in  these  days.  Let  us  all, 
ministers  and  people,  get  rid  of  this  and  every  other 
besetting  sin,  let  us  long  to  be  like  Him— to  fall  in 
love  with  His  beauty,  His  purity,  and  His  holiness. 
There  was  a  theory  that  was  prevalent  in  ancient 
Greece  to  the  effect  that  a  person  is  so  affected  by 
contact  and  environment  that  beautiful  statues  and 
beautiful  pictures  were  essential  to  every  home  where 
the  inmates  wanted  to  be  perfect  in  form  and  stature. 
This  may  not  apply  to  the  body,  but  it  does  apply  to 
the  soul.  It  is  only  that  man  or  woman  who  knows 
the  secret  of  His  presence,  who  continually  walks  with 
God — who  has  learned  to  love  Jesus  as  a  constant 
Companion  and  Friend — who  grows  in  spirit  like 
Him.    God  help  us  all  to  reflect  His  glory. 


VI 
THE  MODEL  CHURCH 


VI 

THE  MODEL  CHURCH 

Text:  "And  when  they  had  prayed  the  place  was 
shaken  where  they  were  assembled  together." 

Acts.    Chapter  4,  Verse  51. 

I  want  you  first  of  all  to  read  the  wonderful  chapter 
from  which  my  text  is  taken.  There  you  will  find  an 
account  of  the  model  church — the  Church  as  Jesus 
would  have  it  be.  Note  for  a  moment  the  character- 
istics of  that  Church,  "And  when  they  had  prayed 
the  place  was  shaken.  .  .  ."  These  people  knew  how 
to  pray.  That  is  evident.  Their  Church  was  in  truth 
the  House  of  Prayer.  There  was  great  unity  within 
that  Church.  They  were  "of  one  heart  and  one  soul." 
They  were  concentrated  as  well  as  consecrated.  They 
gave  of  their  substance  freely.  They  were  generous 
souls  within  that  Church.  There  was  great  grace  there 
also.  And  surely  there  was  great  power.  "And  with 
great  power  gave  the  Apostles  witness  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  Lord  Jesus."  Note  the  five  great  funda- 
mentals which  go  to  make  up  the  model  Church  of 
Jesus  Christ :  Prayer,  Unity,  Generosity,  Grace,  and 
Power.  If  you  want  your  Church  to  come  up  to  the 
Apostolic  standard,  it  must  possess  all  these  charac- 
teristics. 

In  the  model  Church,  therefore,  the  people  will  love 
to  pray.  They  will  love  that  more  than  anything  else. 
They  would  rather  go  to  a  prayer-meeting  than  to  a 

67 


68  REAL  RELIGION 

place  of  entertainment.  When  the  Church  of  God 
uses  the  Apostolic  standard  it  will  be  a  praying 
Church.  That  will  be  its  chief  characteristic.  These 
people  prayed! 

When  they  prayed  something  happened.  Some  of 
us  would  be  surprised  if  anything  striking  happened 
as  a  result  of  our  prayers.  But,  you  see,  I  am  speak- 
ing of  the  Apostolic  Church;  the  sort  of  Church  you 
say  you  would  like  to  have  in  your  locality.  I  am 
speaking,  not  of  a  Church  which  had  grown  con- 
ventional and  cold,  but  of  an  arrestive,  conspicuous, 
outstanding,  convincing,  converting  Church.  And  the 
people  within  this  Church  were  so  strange  and  peculiar 
in  their  manner  and  actions  that  when  the  outward 
world  first  caught  a  glimpse  of  them,  they  said,  they 
are  all  drunken  with  new  wine.  But  the  leader  of 
the  Church  replied  no!  This  is  not  the  result  of 
drunkenness;  our  condition  is  the  fulfilment  of  the 
Divine  Word;  we  are  filled  with  the  unspeakable 
joy  of  salvation;  we  are  about  our  Lord's  business. 
Paul  said,  "Unto  me  who  am  less  than  the  least 
of  all  saints  is  this  grace  given,  that  I  should  preach 
among  the  Gentiles  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ 
and  to  make  all  men  see.  ..."  If  we,  who  are  in  the 
ministry,  are  not  making  men  and  women  ''see,"  are 
not  opening  the  eyes  of  the  spiritually  blind  to  the 
misery  of  their  condition  and  to  the  possibilities  of 
Divine  Grace,  our  Churches  are  as  unlike  the  model 
Church,  the  Apostolic  Church,  as  they  can  be.  The 
business  of  the  Church  is  to  bring  light  to  them  that 
sit  in  darkness — to  make  men  "see."  And  if  that 
business  is  not  being  .carried  on  with  success,  it  is 


THE  MODEL  CHURCH  69 

about  time  we  tried  new  methods,  or  went  out  of  busi- 
ness altogether. 

The  first  Church,  then,  was  a  praying  Church.  It 
was  a  united  Church;  a  generous  Church;  a  gracious 
Church.  Grace  was  upon  it;  the  grace  of  God,  which 
made  its  members  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice. 
They  possessed  "the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ." 
Or,  let  me  put  it  another  way.  The  dew  of  God's 
grace  rested  upon  them  so  that  they  became  drenched 
with  power — the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The 
moment  you  came  into  contact  with  them,  you  felt 
that  you  were  in  touch  with  a  "live  wire."  Are  your 
Church-members  like  that  ? 

Prayer,  unity,  generosity,  grace  and  power  were  the 
outstanding  characteristics  of  the  Apostolic  Church. 
Are  they  the  outstanding  characteristics  of  your 
Church?  Do  men  and  women  enter  Sunday  after 
Sunday  and  say,  'T  am  in  the  place  of  Prayer — there 
is  the  quickening  atmosphere  of  Prayer  all  about  me." 
Do  they  realise  that  the  spirit  of  unity  exists  there? 
Are  they  conscious  of  the  generosity,  the  grace,  and 
the  power  of  those  whose  names  are  on  the  Church- 
Roll,  and  who  worship  there  Sunday  after  Sunday? 
Are  you  an  office-bearer  in  your  Church?  If  so,  I 
wonder  if  you  ever  realise  that  you  are  an  under- 
shepherd  of  the  flock.  I  wonder  if  you  ever  realise 
that  God  has  put  you  into  that  office  for  His  glory? 
Do  you  ever  say  to  yourself,  "I  stand  in  this  Church 
as  a  representative  of  My  Lord  and  Master  to  them 
who  know  Him  not;  who  suspect  Him;  who  mis- 
understand Him;  who  turn  their  backs  upon  Him." 
Are  you  conscious  of  the  fact  that  you  are  here  to 


70  REAL  RELIGION 

interpret  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  to  those  who  -enter  your 
Church?  Do  you  know  why  they  chose  jnen  to  be 
office-bearers  in  the  model  Church  of  which  I  am 
speaking?  They  were  chosen  because  they  were  good 
men  and  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Are  you  that  kind? 
Because  if  you  are  I  will  tell  you  some  of  the  things 
you  will  do,  or  have  done  already,  in  co-operation  with 
your  minister,  for  the  good  of  the  community  and 
the  salvation  of  the  people  round  about  you. 

First,  you  will  strive  to  know  every  house  in  the 
district.  You  will  want  to  know  who  lives  in  that 
house.  You  will  know  whether  the  parents  go  to 
Church  and  the  children  to  Sunday  School.  That  is 
your  business.  God  has  placed  His  church  in  the 
midst  of  the  district  to  be  a  citadel  of  spiritual  power; 
to  be  a  place  where  penitent  sinners  may  find 
refuge,  and  refreshment,  and  strength  to  live  rightly. 
It  is  not  the  bricks  and  mortar  and  cement  and  stone- 
work which  constitute  the  Church;  it  is  the  living, 
redeemed,  sanctified  men  and  women  who  have  fellow- 
ship with  their  Lord.  Yon  are  the  Church!  And  if 
you  are  good  men  and  true,  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit, 
as  office-bearers  in  the  Church  you  will  seek  to  know 
something  about  the  men  and  women  and  the  little 
children  around  you  who  want  what  the  Church  stands 
for — grace,  strength,  comfort,  power,  salvation.  You 
will  have  their  names  upon  your  visiting  list  and  their 
needs  upon  your  heart,  and  their  salvation  will  be  your 
chief  concern.  You  will  visit  them  and  pray  with 
them,  and  speak  to  them  about  the  unsearchable  riches 
which  you  possess  in  Christ  Jesus.  You  will  be  God's 
representative  for  the  salvation  of  these.  His  people. 


THE  MODEL  CHURCH  71 

"Oh !"  but  some  one  says,  "I  cannot  do  that.  I  did 
not  undertake  to  do  such  things  when  I  consented  to 
take  office  in  the  Church."  Why  not?  You  would 
undertake  so  much,  and  more,  if  you  wanted  a  man's 
vote  at  the  next  election.  You  would  find  out  where 
he  lived,  and  call  to  see  him.  You  would  flatter  him 
a  bit,  pay  him  attention,  keep  visiting  him  until  you 
were  fairly  sure  he  was  on  your  side,  and  when 
the  day  of  the  election  came  round,  you  would 
not  be  content  to  let  him  walk  to  the  polling- 
booth,  you  would  give  him  a  lift  in  your  motor-car, 
to  make  sure  he  got  there  all  right.  Yes,  but  what 
do  you  do  when  you  want  him  to  come  to  Church? 
You  merely  pull  a  bell  or  put  out  a  bill !  You  don't 
often  send  a  motor  for  him,  or  even  let  him  know 
-that  you  are  anxious  to  have  him  attend  your  Church. 
And  the  man  says  to  himself,  "When  these  people 
wanted  my  vote  they  came  and  saw  me  and  made  a 
fuss  over  me,  but  when  it  is  my  soul  they  are  after, 
they  don't  take  half  the  trouble,  or  any  trouble.'^ 
When  you  want  that  man  as  much  for  his  soul  as  you 
did  for  his  vote  you  will  do  anything,  go  anywhere, 
to  win  him  for  Jesus  Christ.  When  you  have  the 
atmosphere  and  spirit  of  the  early  Church  in  your 
Church  you  will  do  everything  possible  to  bring  men 
and  women  to  God.  Do  you  know  these  people  who 
remain  outside  your  Church?  Perhaps  there  is  a  bar- 
rier between  you,  and  if  it  is  ever  to  be  broken  down, 
you  will  have  to  do  it,  you  will  have  to  make  these 
people  feel  that  you  really  want  them.  That  is  your 
business,  you  church  officials.  Find  out  every  man 
and  woman  and  child  in  the  district  who  does  not  go 


72  REAL  RELIGION 

to  Church  and  then  lay  it  upon  your  conscience  that 
you  do  everything  you  can  do  to  bring  them  into  fel- 
lowship with  God  and  God's  people  in  His  House  of 
Worship,  Prayer,  and  Praise. 

I  want  to  tell  you  something  else  you  office- 
bearers would  be  doing,  if  you  were  like  the  members 
of  the  first  Apostolic  Church.  You  would  come  to 
Church  every  Sunday  morning  a  little  earlier  in  order 
to  meet  in  prayer  with  your  minister,  and  that  would 
have  a  mighty  effect  upon  the  day's  services,  upon  the 
preacher,  and  upon  the  congregation.  What  a  won- 
derful uplift  your  preacher  would  receive  if  he  knew 
that  every  office-bearer  in  the  Church  spent  an  hour 
in  his  vestry  praying  for  him,  that  his  message  might 
be  filled  with  power  from  the  Holy  Ghost.  That  is 
your  business.  It  is  one  way  in  which  you  can  con- 
struct your  model  Church.  Here  is  another.  You 
can  watch  carefully  the  spiritual  life  of  the  Church, 
guard  it  at  every  point,  stimulate  it  by  prayer  and 
godly  conversation  and  see  to  it  that  nothing  is  allowed 
to  enter  the  Church  to  pollute  the  spiritual  atmosphere 
or  to  smother  the  promptings  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  You 
will  think  also,  of  the  needs  of  the  weakest  member. 
You  will  be  sharing  his  burden.  It  is  the  business  of 
an  office-bearer  to  build  up  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
Church,  to  foster  it,  develop  it,  refresh  it,  energise  it. 
By  wise  counsel,  godly  example,  and  consecration  you 
must  live  up  to  your  high  calling  as  good  men,  filled 
with  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Another  thing  you  will  do — you  will  support  your 
minister,  be  loyal  to  him.  You  won't  discuss  his  ser- 
mons critically  over  the  meal-table  on  Sunday.    When 


THE  MODEL  CHURCH  78 

he  has  said  something  that  hits  you,  you  will  not  ac- 
cuse him  of  being  bigoted  and  narrow-minded.  I  have 
known  preachers  whose  hearts  were  broken  and  whose 
hair  was  whitened  because  of  the  lack  of  sympathy  and 
support  of  the  office-bearers  of  the  Church.  I  have 
known  Churches  to  be  robbed  and  rendered  desolate 
of  spiritual  influence  and  power  through  the  incon- 
sistency of  the  office-bearers.  Pray  God  that  your 
Church  may  not  be  thus  wronged  by  you. 

Again,  there  will  be  no  converting  power  within 
your  Church,  no  building-up  and  strengthening  of 
Christian  graces  of  character,  if  the  spiritual  atmos- 
phere is  vitiated.  You  must  see  to  it  that  all  its  win- 
dows are  open  to  the  winds  of  Heaven  that  the  breath 
of  God  may  have  full  play  within  its  four  walls. 

Another  thing  you  will  do.  You  will  get  together 
as  often  as  possible  and  say  to  each  other,  ''Where  are 
the  people  who  attend  this  Church  and  are  anxious 
about  their  souls?"  You  will  compare  notes.  You 
will  say  to  Brother  So-and-So,  "Do  you  know  any- 
body in  your  district  who  is  almost  persuaded  to  be  a 
Christian?  If  so,  let  us  kneel  down  and  pray  for 
him."  You  will  discuss  the  spiritual  prospects  of 
your  Church  and  the  community  round  about  it  as 
earnestly,  as  intelligently,  as  enthusiastically,  as  you 
would  discuss  your  own  prospects  in  business.  If 
you  conducted  your  business  affairs  in  the  same  manner 
as  some  of  you  conduct  the  affairs  of  your  Church — 
of  the  King's  business — I  am  afraid  you  would  soon 
go  bankrupt.  Keenness  in  building  up  a  Church  means 
that  we  are  alive,  and  slackness  means  that  we  are  not 
alive.     God  expects  us  to  put  the  very  best  service  into 


74  REAL  RELIGION 

the  business  of  His  Kingdom,  and  the  men  and  women 
who  do  that  get  the  highest  price  for  their  labour. 
God  makes  no  mistakes  on  the  wage-sheet  of  His 
Kingdom,  and  if  you  get  nothing  much  out  of  your 
work  in  the  Church  it  means  that  you  put  nothing 
much  into  it.  And  you  must  put  first  things  first. 
You  must  see  to  it  that  the  hfe  of  your  Church  is  filled 
with  the  Holy  Spirit.  You  must  see  that  the  men  and 
women  who  come  to  your  Church  in  need  of  salvation 
find  it. 

Many  ofiice-bearers  are  aware  how,  somehow  or 
other,  the  spirit  of  the  world  creeps  into  the  life  of 
the  Church.  I  urge  you  with  all  my  heart  to  stop  this 
drift  toward  the  world.  Unless  it  is  stopped,  in  the 
end  you  may  be  called  upon  to  destroy  what  you  have 
built  up,  to  set  fire  to  the  Church  in  which  you  wor- 
ship and  serve.  A  worldly  church  is  like  a  painted 
flower.  It  has  neither  life  nor  fragrance,  and  is  where 
it  is  simply  to  mock  and  deceive.  You  have  got  to 
stop  playing  with  religion  and  to  love  it,  if  you  intend 
to  build  up  a  model  Church  in  the  midst  of  a  perverse 
and  crooked  generation.  It  will  mean  prayer,  earnest 
prayer,  to  do  that ;  it  will  mean  unity,  generosity,  grace, 
power,  to  make  your  church  all  that  God  would  have 
it  be. 

Now  I  have  striven  to  show  you  something  of  your 
responsibility  as  members  and  office-bearers  in  the 
Christian  Church.  But  when  you  and  I  have  done  all 
I  have  asked  to  be  done,  we  fall  lamentably  short  of 
what  we  might  do,  and  could  do,  for  our  Master  and 
Lord.  When  I  think  of  His  love  and  His  sacrifice  for 
me,  and  think  of  the  little  I  have  done  for  Him,  I  am 


THE  MODEL  CHURCH  75 

ashamed  and  sorrowful  in  heart.  Realising  your  high 
calling,  and  the  standard  of  your  service,  do  you  not 
feel  compelled  at  this  moment  to  rededicate  yourselves 
to  Christ  and  the  work  of  your  Church  in  a  very 
special  manner?  And  if  the  outcome  of  that  dedica- 
tion is  what  I  know  it  must  be  and  will  be — a  new 
atmosphere  of  love  within  your  Church,  a  new  spirit 
of  helpfulness,  a  new  energy  in  building  up  the  King- 
dom, a  new  desire  to  win  souls  for  your  Master — then 
you  will  find  that  your  Church  is  making  progress 
toward  the  standard  of  the  Apostolic  Church,  and  that 
in  all  things  which  make  the  Church  of  supreme  im- 
portance to  the  nation,  the  community,  and  the  indi- 
vidual, the  one  Church  in  which  you  serve,  and  which 
you  love,  is  becoming  truly  great — a  place  of  grace, 
and  a  place  of  power  for  the  regeneration  of  humanity 
and  for  the  glory  of  humanity's  God. 

Note:   This   sermon  was  preached  especially  to   church 
officials. 


VII 
THE  REAL  KINGDOM 


VII 

THE  REAL  KINGDOM 

Text:  "For  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and 
drink,  but  righteousness  and  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy- 
Ghost." 

Epistle  to  Romans.    Chapter  14,  Verse  17, 

The  New  Testament  religion  is  a  big  thing.  Many- 
Christians  do  not  grasp  the  stupendousness  of  its  teach- 
ing and  have  not  yet  fully  realised  its  saving,  pardon- 
ing, cleansing,  healing  power.  I  am  trying  to  help  men 
and  women  to  get  the  best  out  of  life:  to  realise  that 
what  we,  as  preachers,  talk  about  is  a  living  vita! 
thing.  I  pray  that  the  Holy  Spirit  may  accompany 
my  message  with  power. 

"The  Kingdom  of  God,"  says  the  Apostle,  "is  not 
meat  and  drink."  That  is,  it  is  not  an  external  con- 
dition— but  an  internal  condition.  It  is  not  a  superfi- 
cial thing — a  matter  of  form  and  ceremony — but  an 
indwelling  grace.  It  is  not  an  earthly  acquirement  but 
a  Heavenly  gift.-  It  is  brought  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
To  use  a  phrase  of  tremendous  meaning,  "It  is  shed 
abroad  in  our  hearts !" 

"Yes,  but — ."  you  say.  "I  agree  with  you  to  some 
extent,  but  have  we  not  to  'work  out  our  own  sal- 
vation' ?"  Yes,  when  you  get  salvation  in,  the  power 
within.  You  must  get  that  in  first.  You  cannot  build 
houses  without  bricks  and  mortar  and  timber.     You 

79 


80  REAL  RELIGION 

cannot  construct  a  watch  without  the  requisite  material. 
You  cannot  manifest  the  character  of  Christ  until  the 
fruits  of  His  Spirit;  righteousness,  joy  and  peace  are 
created  within  you  by  Almighty  God. 

This  is  a  very  deep  experience,  this  developing  within 
the  human  soul  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  It  may 
be  that  to  speak  of  it  is  akin  to  speaking  a  foreign  lan- 
guage to  some  Church  members,  but  it  ought  not  to  be 
so.  Here  is  the  crux  of  the  whole  question.  When 
your  Church  membership  is  to  you  all  that  it  ought  to 
be,  when  you  are  alive  from  the  dead  and  filled  with 
the  Holy  Spirit,  then  you  will  accomplish  something. 
Just  as  long  as  the  Church  of  God  is  content  to  remain 
one  of  many  institutions,  she  will  have,  her  little  day 
and  die,  but  the  moment  she  becomes  so  God-filled  and 
God-inspired  that  she  is  unique — when  the  world  looks 
on  and  says  that  she  is  drunk  and  mad — at  that  moment 
she  will  be  on  the  highway  to  capture  the  world  for 
Christ. 

These  things  are  necessary,  vitally  necessary,  to  her 
life  and  progress:  The  peace  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  not 
a  spurious  peace,  not  apathy  or  insensibility,  but  the 
peace  that  flows  like  a  river;  not  the  peace  of  the 
Churchyard  or  the  cemetery,  but  a  living,  moving 
peace  that  goes  forward  like  a  majestic,  glorious,  over- 
flowing river.  Earth's  rivers  often  run  dry  during  a 
season  of  drought,  and  I  will  tell  you  why.  They  all 
run  towards  the  ocean,  and  they  run  dry  when  there  is 
no  rain  and  the  spring  has  ceased  to  flow  at  the  source. 
But  the  River  of  God  Is  full  of  water.  Why?  Be- 
cause it  flows  forth  from  an  ocean,  the  ocean  of  His 
boundless  love.     The  Peace  of  the  Kingdom  is  like 


THE  REAL  KINGDOM  81 

this  river.  "Oh,  that  thou  hadst  hearkened  unto  Me. 
Then  had  thy  peace  been  Hke  a  river!'*  said  the  Al- 
mighty One.  Not  a  peace  Hke  that  of  the  lake,  which 
can  be  stagnant;  but  peace  like  that  of  a  river;  move- 
ment, ease,  quietude.  In  the  movement  of  God's  river 
there  is  power  and  peace. 

The  peace  of  the  Kingdom  is  within  itself.  It  does 
not  depend  upon  outward  circumstances  or  environ- 
ment. It  does  not  depend  upon  social  standing.  It 
does  not  depend  upon  a  comfortable  income.  It  does 
not  come  as  the  result  of  some  self -selected  task.  It 
is  not  acquired  even  by  Church  work,  or  by  teaching 
in  the  Sunday  School.  I  would  not  allow  any  person 
to  teach  in  a  Sunday  School  who  did  not  possess  this 
righteousness,  joy  and  peace  which  are  found  within 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  I  would  refuse  to  consent  that 
my  children,  spiritually  blind  and  ignorant  as  they  must 
be  without  grace,  should  be  led  by  a  blind  leader,  ig- 
norant of  God's  gifts  to  His  followers  of  righteous- 
ness, joy  and  peace. 

Note,  then,  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  does  not  com- 
mence with  peace,  but  with  righteousness.  Peace  is 
a  fruit.  The  same  writer  says,  "The  fruit  of  the  Spirit 
is  love,  joy  and  peace!"  Peace  is  a  fruit  and  grows 
upon  a  tree,  the  roots  of  which  are  in  the  Eternal 
Throne  of  Righteousness.  None  can  get  peace  until 
they  are  right  with  God.  One  indispensable  condition 
of  peace  is  righteousness,  harmony,  fellowship,  recon- 
ciliation with  God.  There  can  be  no  real  peace  until 
this  takes  place. 

Put  God  where  He  ought  to  be  in  your  life  and  you 
will  soon  gain  peace.     Put  Him  upon  the  throne !    If 


82  REAL  RELIGION 

there  is  anything  within  your  heart  contrary  to  His 
will,  cast  it  out.  Abandon  it.  In  my  daily  contact 
with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  and  women  who 
are  influenced  by  the  gospel  message,  I  have  found 
that,  although  there  may  be  a  dozen  things  in  their  life 
and  practice  which  are  wrong,  it  is  generally  one 
dominating,  enslaving,  masterful  passion  which  keeps 
them  away  from  God.  It  is  the  one  thing  before  which 
they  fall  down  and  worship  and  -make  sacrifice;  and 
if  that  one  thing  is  conquered,  all  the  rest  yield.  That 
thing  must  go !  It  is  useless  to  talk  about  peace  until 
the  occasion  for  war  is  put  away.  If  you  want  peace, 
you  must  submit  to  God's  Will.  That  is  the  right 
way  to  peace.  There  is  no  other.  You  may  gain 
spiritual  stupor  by  other  means ;  the  devil  may  admin- 
ister an  opiate  to  your  soul;  he  may  lull  you  to  sleep 
and  make  you  cry  "Peace,"  when  there  is  no  peace. 
But  if  you  get  right  with  God,  peace  will  surely  follow. 
You  must,  then,  trample  under  foot  and  destroy  every- 
thing in  your  heart  that  opposes  the  Divine  Will.  Put 
God  first,  and  when  you  have  placed  Him  upon  the 
throne,  you  will  possess  strength  and  power  sufficient 
to  do  things  you  formerly  thought  impossible.  And 
you  will  try  to  do  them,  because  you  cannot  help  your- 
selves. There  is  something  about  being  right  with 
God  which  lifts  and  constrains  men  to  do  right  to  all. 
It  is  a  wonderful  gospel,  this  old-time  religion.  It 
transcends  everything  else  in  the  world.  It  transforms 
all  who  give  heed  to  it,  and  makes  them  beautiful  in 
life  and  character.  It  brings  with  it  the  exhilaration 
of  spiritual  robustness,  the  joy  of  the  Lord.  When 
we  get  into  His  Kingdom  we  receive  His  peace,  and 


THE  REAL  KINGDOM  8S 

His  joy.  Have  you  got  this?  If  so,  you  will  know- 
it  and  others  will  know  it  too.  If  you  are  a  church- 
member,  your  minister  will  see  it  in  your  face.  Your 
wife,  or  your  husband,  will  see  it.  The  children  will 
know  all  about  it.  Your  servants  will  know  about  it. 
The  errand  boy  will  recognise  it.  Tradespeople  will 
discover  all  about  it.  You  will  pay  your  bills.  You 
will  keep  out  of  debt.  You  will  go  without  things 
rather  than  get  into  debt  for  them,  knowing  you  cannot 
pay.  Religion  makes  people  do  right.  And  the  peace 
of  God  and  the  joy  of  God  satisfies  you.  You  will 
not  covet  worldly  things.  Have  you  got  that  sort 
of  reHgion?  Because  if  you  have  not  got  that  kind 
of  reHgion,  you  must  have  it  before  you  can  hope  to 
be  of  much  use  to  your  church,  your  city,  your 
loved  ones  and  friends.  I  have  as  much  appreciation 
of  the  world  as  most  men  have  but  I  know  from  glad 
experience  that  Jesus  Christ  can  satisfy  every  avenue 
of  a  man's  life  with  the  unsearchable  riches  of  His 
Grace.  He  can  hold  you  and  keep  you  poised  and  an- 
chored in  the  peace  and  joy  of  the  Lord.  Do  you 
believe  that?  Have  you  realised  that?  If  you  have 
you  will  not  want  to  go  warming  yourselves  by  the 
world's  fire.  Your  hearts  will  be,  as  Wesley  puts  it, 
"strangely  warmed." 

Some  of  you  may  have  had  that  joy  in  days  gone 
by.  You  have  lost  it  somewhere  on  the  highway  of 
life  and  you  will  never  be  satisfied  until  you  return  to 
find  it.  Some  of  you  have  never  had  it.  You  just 
joined  the  Church.  You  were  not  converted.  There 
was  no  change  in  your  life  and  outlook.  You  do  the 
same  things  that  you  did  before.     You  are  trying  to 


84  REAL  RELIGION 

live  a  new  life  with  an  old  heart.  You  cannot  do  that. 
Give  up  the  attempt.  Either  get  right  with  the  King- 
dom or  get  right  out  of  it !  But  do  not  get  out,  get  in ! 
For  within  the  Kingdom  there  is  righteousness  and 
peace  and  joy. 

But,  putting  God  first  means  a  complete  surrender 
to  His  will  and  service.  It  is  saying,  in  truth, 
"All  for  Jesus,"  just  as  so  many  brave  boys  said,  years 
ago  now,  "All  for  England" ;  "All  for  America" ;  "All 
for  France" ;  "All  for  Belgium."  They  did  not  count 
the  cost,  neither  must  you.  The  British  Government 
sent  me  during  the  war  through  the  devastated  areas 
of  France,  and  one  day  I  came  into  contact  with  a 
sergeant  who  had  lost  his  arm.  It  had  been  blown  off 
near  Chateau  Thierry.  When  the  stretcher-bearers 
picked  up  this  wounded  man  they  found  his  arm  had 
been  blown  off  just  below  the  elbow.  When  I  met  him 
I  put  my  arm  around  him  and  said,  "Sonny,  I  am  sorry 
you  lost  your  arm."  "Mr.  Smith,"  he  said,  "I  did  not 
lose  my  arm.  I  gave  it  gladly  for  my  country.  I  only 
did  what  any  man  would  do  for  the  land  he  loves,  and 
his  dear  ones  in  it."  Would  you  do  that  for  Jesus? 
That  is  the  spirit  which  you  must  possess  before  you 
can  enter  the  Kingdom. 

What  are  the  pleasures  of  the  world  worth  ?  What 
does  the  gaining  of  a  little  money  really  amount  to? 
How  much  better  off  is  any  man  for  a  step-up  in  the 
social  scale?  Coffins  are  not  lined  with  pockets  for 
money!  Dead  men  cannot  smell  the  laurel-leaves  of 
fame !  Get  right  with  God  and  you  possess  the  prom- 
ise of  this  life  and  of  the  life  to  come.  To  be  right 
with  God  is  something  worth  striving  for ;  worth  fight- 


THE  REAL  KINGDOM  85 

ing  for.  To  have  a  clear  conscience  is  a  great  posses- 
sion. To  have  within  your  heart  the  hope  of  Heaven 
brings  joy  and  ''peace  Hke  a  river !"  There  are  no  joys 
like  those  which  Christ  brings  into  the  human  heart. 
He  saves  you  from  the  ugliness  of  sin.  He  fills  you 
with  the  joy  of  His  Salvation.  He  is  worth  knowing, 
is  this  Jesus.  He  is  worth  serving  until  the  end.  He 
sets  before  you  a  high  standard  in  life  and  gives  you 
grace  to  desire  it  and  power  to  reach  it.  He  fills  your 
days  with  satisfaction  and  your  nights  with  wonderful 
peace. 

Righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost! 
You  can  have  all  this  if  you  are  willing  to  pay  the  price. 
What  is  that  price  ?  It  must  be  paid  upon  your  knees, 
as  befits  poor  sinners  turning  in  penitence  to  a  Holy 
God.  You  can  never  pay  the  purchase  price  any  other 
way.  You  must  climb  down  from  your  stilts.  I  saw 
a  little  fellow  the  other  day  with  a  broken  arm  and  I 
said  to  him,  ''How  did  you  get  that,  my  boy?"  "I 
Was  on'  stilts  and  fell  off,  sir,*^  he  replied.  Some  of 
you  will  have  to  get  down  from  your  stilts — not  at 
the  risk  of  a  broken  arm,  but  of  a  broken  heart.  You 
will  have  to  pass  through  Gethsemane  to  reach  your 
Easter  Morning.  Is  this  the  kind  of  religion  you  are 
seeking?  Is  this  the  religion  you  want?  Is  this  the 
Jesus  you  are  willing  to  enthrone?  Are  you  hungry 
and  thirsty  to  enter  the  Kingdom  which  is  righteous- 
ness, peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Spirit?  Then,  in 
the  name  of  God,  let  me  say  to  you,  "Blessed  are  they 
that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for  they 
shall  be  filled." 


VIII 
SEEDTIME  AND  HARVEST 


VIII 

SEEDTIME  AND  HARVEST 

Text  :  "Be  not  deceived,  God  is  not  mocked :  for  what- 
soever a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap:  for  he 
that  soweth  to  his  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corrup- 
tion: but  he  that  soweth  to  the  Spirit  shall  of  the  Spirit 
reap  life  everlasting!" 

Galatians,    Chapter  6,  Verses  7  and  8. 

"Be  not  deceived."  It  is  time  that  every  man  should 
prepare  to  face  this  fact ;  that  God  sees  him  and  knows 
him  through  and  through;  knows  the  best  and  the 
worst  about  him  and  in  him;  that  there  is  nothing 
hidden  from  the  Judge  of  the  earth  and  the  Father  of 
us  all.  Do  not  be  deluded!  Do  not  live  in  a  fool's 
paradise!  As  to  your  own  character,  as  to  your  pri- 
vate life  and  public  life,  as  to  your  individual  motives 
and  desires,  "be  not  deceived,  God  is  not  mocked." 
You  may  fool  one  another,  you  may  fool  your  neigh- 
bours, you  may  fool  the  other  members  of  your  family; 
or  your  employer;  but  you  cannot  fool  the  All- 
wise  God.  There  is  an  old-fashioned  proverb  to 
the  effect  that  "Where  ignorance  is  bliss,  'tis 
folly  to  be  wise!"  But  where  spiritual  things  are 
concerned,  humanity's  proverbs  are  not  always  true,  or 
timely.  There  is  danger  in  not  knowing  about,  or  car- 
ing about,  the  issues  of  life  and  death;  the  facts  about 
heaven  and  hell ;  the  opportunities  of  time  and  eternity. 
In  all  these  respects,  there  is  the  utmost  folly  shown  in 

89 


90  REAL  RELIGION 

not  knowing  and  facing  things  as  they  are.  Abraham 
Lincoln  once  said,  ''You  can  fool  all  the  people  some  of 
the  time :  you  can  fool  some  of  the  people  all  the  time : 
but  you  cannot  fool  all  of  the  people  all  of  the  time  !'* 
You  cannot  deceive  God  for  a  moment.  God  refuses 
to  be  bribed.  God's  eye  cannot  be  closed.  It  may  not 
be  pleasant  for  you  to  know  and  think  God  knows  you 
at  your  worst — but  it  is  true !  "Be  not  deceived :  God 
is  not  mocked,"  for  listen,  "Whatsoever  a  man  soweth, 
that  shall  he  also  reap!" 

My  brother,  the  word  "that"  is  as  big  as  the  "whatso- 
ever." Indeed,  it  is  a  little  bigger — for  harvests  are 
usually  more  abundant  than  the  sown  seed.  "Whatso- 
ever a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap!"  I  may 
not  reap  it,  he  must  reap  it.  Every  man  must  bear  his 
own  responsibility ;  the  burden  of  his  own  sin !  What- 
soever he  sows,  that  shall  he  reap.  Men  do  not  gather 
grapes  of  thorns;  nor  figs  from  thistles:  men  do  not 
scatter  barley  and  expect  to  grow  wheat;  they  do  not 
go  forth  and  scatter  turnip  seed  and  expect  a  harvest 
of  rye.  Men  look  for  kind — kind  for  kind.  Men  tell 
their  sons  that  if  they  are  studious,  industrious,  up- 
right, and  honest  they  will  get  on;  that  these  virtues 
make  for  success  and  progress.  That  is  true  in  the 
natural  world :  its  truth  is  illustrated  in  a  thousand  dif- 
ferent ways.  The  apostle  appeals  to  this  fundamental 
and  mighty  truth,  and  declares  that  what  happens  in 
the  natural  world  also  happens  in  the  spiritual  world. 
What  we  did  yesterday  affects  us  to-day!  What  we 
do  to-day  will  affect  us  to-morrow!  If  God  ceased  to 
be,  that  law  would  continue  to  go  on !  It  is  unchange- 
able, immutable,  that  we  should  reap  what  we  sow. 


SEEDTIME  AND  HARVEST  91 

What  shall  the  harvest  be  ?  My  brother,  let  me  tell 
you  how  you  can  answer  that  question.  Look  at  what 
you  are,  settle  what  you  are,  know  what  you  are  doing. 
Pause  in  the  rush  and  hurry,  the  fret  and  strain,  of 
daily  life  and  think  of  what  you  are;  what  you  are 
doing;  for  what  you  are  living.  Say  to  yourself: 
'What  am  I?  What  am  I  doing?  For  what  am  I 
living?  How  do  I  stand  in  relation  to  my  Bible  and 
my  God?  What  am  I  doing  with  the  precious  life 
God  has  given  me?"  My  brother,  you  have  yet  to 
settle  the  question  as  to  what  the  harvest  of  your  life 
shall  be.  Do  not  be  deceived ;  the  question  affects  you 
— and  all  about  you.  Every  man  lives  not  unto  him- 
self, but  also  to  others.  We  are  living,  not  unto  our- 
selves, but  are  scattering  seed  day  by  day,  hour  by 
hour,  which  will  result  in  a  harvest  that  is  God-honour- 
ing, Christ-crowning,  heaven-building,  or  that  will  be 
nothing  but  a  crop  of  tangled  thickets  and  poisonous 
weeds  which  must  at  length  be  gathered  and  rooted  up 
at  the  cost  of  torn  and  bleeding  hands  and  hearts. 
Many  a  man,  through  his  own  folly  will  be  forced  to 
reap  an  acreage  of  tangled  thickets.  At  the  end,  at 
the  harvest,  it  will  be  no  use  for  him  to  look  over  this 
waste  and  say,  *'0  God,  I  never  meant  all  this.  I 
never  meant  to  grow  briars  and  thistles!"  Probably 
you  did  not,  my  brother,  but  if  the  sowing  was  your 
work  you  will  also  have  to  reap  the  harvest.  You 
must  reap  whatsoever  you  sow ! 

Take  your  speech  as  an  example.  How  can  you 
expect  to  think  pure  thoughts,  good  thoughts,  lofty 
thoughts,  godly  thoughts,  and  to  work  out  these 
thoughts  into  words  that  will  teach  people  of  God  and 


92  REAL  RELIGION 

of  goodness  when  you  read  nothing  but  news  from  the 
Divorce  Court,  or  glory  in  telhng  filthy  stories — or  in 
listening  to  them?  How  can  you  expect  to  speak 
purely,  to  live  purely,  when  your  thoughts  are  vile 
enough  to  make  people  think  you  have  been  to  hell 
for  your  education,  and  have  had  the  devil  for  your 
schoolmaster?  How  can  you  expect  your  children  to 
use  pure  speech  when  they  hear  little  else  but  oaths  and 
curses  from  your  lips  ?  You  are  sowing  evil  seed  in 
doing  these  things  and  don't  forget  that.  I  would 
rather  be  dumb  than  to  use  the  power  of  speech  to 
curse  and  swear  and  tell  vile  stories.  How  can  you 
expect  your  children  to  grow  up  sober  if  you 
teach  them  to  drink  strong  drink.  If  God  were  to 
lift  a  curtain  before  your  eyes  and  let  you  look  into  the 
future,  some  of  you  might  see,  twenty  years  from  now, 
a  prison  cell.  In  it  you  would  see  a  poor,  dejected, 
besotted  criminal — and  you  would  scarcely  recognise 
him.  His  very  look  would  horrify  you.  Vile  of  lip, 
bloody  of  cheek,  sunken  of  eye,  bestial  in  look  and 
gesture,  you  would  be  appalled  at  the  sight  and  cry 
out,  *'0  God,  what  is  that — who  is  he?"  And  God 
would  answer,  ''That  is  the  boy  you  sent  for  your 
dinner-beer  on  Sunday.''  You  will  reap  whatsoever 
you  sow! 

Listen!  On  the  other  side  of  the  ocean  I  knew  of 
a  home  where  the  mother  one  day  came  suddenly  into 
a  room  where  her  little  boy  of  six  or  seven  years  of 
age  was  trying  to  kill  a  baby  with  a  pair  of  scissors  he 
held  in  his  hand.  "What  are  you  doing?"  she  cried  in 
horror  as  she  ran  to  snatch  the  scissors  from  the  boy. 
""I  want  to  kill  baby  1"  said  the  lad,  quietly.     This  re- 


SEEDTIME  AND  HARVEST  93 

mark  so  frightened  the  parents  that  they  took  the  boy 
to  a  mental  speciaHst — and  that  speciahst  was  my 
friend.  'Why  do  you  want  to  kill  the  baby  ?"  he  said, 
after  a  thorough  examination  of  the  lad.  "The  Uttle 
one  does  not  harm  you!"  *1  want  to  kill  somebody 
all  the  time!"  was  the  lad's  reply.  Then  the  doctor 
turned  to  the  father  and  said:  "Are  you  a  drinking 
man-?^'  The  father  replied,  "Well,  I  do  drink,  it  is 
true,  but  not  often  to  excess!"  The  Doctor  said, 
"Well,  but  you  do  drink.  That  boy  will  kill  somebody 
some  day.  It  is  in  his  blood  and  your  drinking  habit 
is  the  cause  of  it."  You  reap  whatsoever  you  sow — 
not  only  you,  but  others.  Do  not  forget  what  you 
are  you  are  passing  on  to  the  next  generation.  God 
Almighty  will  hold  s6me  responsible  for  bringing  into 
the  world  murderers,  thieves,  violators  of  women, 
lunatics,  imbeciles.  Do  not  forget  that.  And  how 
can  you  expect  to  keep  your  lives  pure  when  you  keep 
the  company  you  do?  How  can  you  expect  to  keep 
pure  if  you  live  in  the  gutter  of  sin  and  iniquity? 
Listen  to  the  voice  of  God's  Holy  Spirit  to-day.  Stop 
your  folly !  Stop  sowing  wild  oats !  Stop  committing 
moral  suicide!  You  know  where  you  have  gone 
wrong.  Some  of  you  know  already  what  the  first 
downward  step  has  cost  you — whither  it  has  led  you. 
At  first  you  never  slept,  thinking  of  the  consequences 
of  your  folly — of  your  sin.  Now  you  can  do  the  same 
thing  with  impunity:  you  have  become  indifferent, 
careless,  callous.  That  is  how  the  law  works.  That 
is  one  of  the  natural  effects  of  wrong-doing.  Some 
of  you  may,  perhaps,  remember  when  God  called  you 
to  a  life  of  service,  consecration  and  sacrifice.     He 


94  REAL  RELIGION 

wanted  you  for  Himself.  You  remember  what  a  strug- 
gle it  was  for  you  to  say  "No!"  Yes,  but  you  did 
say  "No !"  That  was  the  first  step  downward,  wasn't 
it  ?  You  did  the  same  thing  more  easily  the  next  time, 
and  still  more  easily  the  next.  Now  you  are  reaping 
some  of  the  paralysis  of  the  second  death.  "The  way 
of  the  transgressors  is  hard."  You  reap  whatsoever 
you  sow! 

My  brother,  when  are  you  going  to  stop  and  give 
God  a  chance?  Let  me  tell  you  another  story.  In 
the  city  of  Manchester,  England,  I  had  a  dear  friend 
who  lived  for,  and  loved,  the  young  men  of  that  city. 
He  was  a  well-to-do  merchant  who  gave  up  much  of 
his  spare  time  to  care  for  their  moral  and  spiritual  wel- 
fare. One  day  he  sat  in  his  office  when  the  door 
opened  and  his  son  came  in.  "Father,"  said  the  young 
man,  "there  is  a  policeman  here  who  wants  to  see  you!" 
The  merchant  said,  "Send  him  in,  my  son!"  The 
officer  entered.  "Sir,"  he  said,  "there  is  a  young  man 
dying  in  a  cell  in  the  city  prison  and  he  is  calling  for 
you.  Can  you  come?"  The  merchant  went  im- 
mediately, and  in  that  prison  cell  found  all  that  was 
left  of  a  fine  young  fellow  whom  he  had  known  well 
in  earlier  days.  This  boy  had  started  life  with  great 
gifts  and  opportunities.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  to 
go  ^straight.  He  had  gone  to  the  city  with  his  mother's 
prayers  behind  him,  and  his  mother's  Bible  in  his  bag. 
For  a  few  months  he  had  done  well,  had  played  the 
man,  but  he  had  mixed  himself  up  with  a  lot  of  young 
fellows  who  eventually  made  a  wager  that  they  would 
get  him  drunk.  Let  no  man  attempt  to  rob  another 
of   his   religion   or   of   his   righteous  character.     "It 


SEEDTIME  AND  HARVEST  95 

were  better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about 
his  neck  and  that  he  were  drowned  in  the  depth  of  the 
sea"  than  that  he  should  offend  in  this  manner.  At 
length  the  young  fellow  gave  way  to  his  tempters. 
"They  called  me  a  milksop,  and  many  other  things," 
he  said,  ''and  taunted  me  that  I  was  tied  to  my  mother's 
apron  strings!"  Blessed  tie  that  keeps  a  man  to  his 
God!  Holy  tie  that  tethers  a  man  to  the  Cross,  even 
though  it  be  but  a  mother's  apron  string.  "For  a 
while  I  continued  to  struggle,"  said  he,  "then  one  day 
I  went  out  to  luncheon  and  took  a  glass  of  wine.  The 
rest  was  easy ;  so  easy.  I  soon  began  to  drink  heavily. 
I  started  to  gamble,  and  then  got  heavily  into  debt. 
I  must  have  been  insane  when  one  day  I  signed  my 
master's  name  to  a  cheque  and — well — here  I  am 
dying — and  wanting  to  die.  One  thing  alone  troubles 
me.  I  do  not  want  mother  to  know.  If  she  knew 
I  was  in  jail,  that  I  deserved  to  be  in  jail,  and  was 
dying  in  jail,  she  would  go  mad!"  But  the  merchant 
said,  "She  must  be  told !  It  is  better  -that  she  should 
know!'*  So  the  mother  was  sent  for.  When  she 
reached  the  jail,  she  said,  "O  God,  why  have  I  been 
spared  to  see  this?  What  have  I  done  that  I  should 
come  to  this?  Why  did  I  live  when  he  was  born? 
Why  didn't  I  bury  him  as  soon  as  he  was  born?" 
Heart-broken  and  faint,  the  mother  would  have  fallen, 
but  the  merchant  said  to  her,  "You  must  be  quick  if 
you  want  to  see  your  son  before  he  passes  away." 
But  when  she  reached  the  prison  cell  it  was  too  late, 
so  she  just  knelt  down  beside  the  lifeless  body  and 
threw  her  arms  around  it  and  kissed  it  and  said,  "Oh, 
Willie,  my  Willie !    I  would  to  God  that  I  had  died  for 


96  REAL  RELIGION 

thee !"  But  it  was  too  late !  The  boy  was  reaping  his 
own  harvest.  Mothers  cannot  stop  the  working  out  of 
this  immutable  law :  fathers  cannot  stop  it :  God  cannot 
stop  it.  You  reap  whatsoever  you  sow!  Your  only 
chance  to  gain  forgiveness  is  to  stand  humbly  at  the 
foot  of  Calvary's  Cross,  where  there  is  hope  and  heal- 
ing for  all 


i 


IX 
STRENGTH  AND  BEAUTY 


IX 

STRENGTH  AND  BEAUTY 

Text:  "Awake,  awake,  put  on  thy  strength,  O  Zion; 
put  on  thy  beautiful  garments,  O  Jerusalem." 

Isaiah.    Chapter  ^2,  Verse  i. 

These  are  the  words  of  a  reply  from  God  to  His 
ancient  people,  who  are  in  a  complaining  mood  as  a 
result  of  their  estrangement  from  Him.  In  an  interval 
of  returning  sanity,  they  seem  to  wake  up  a  little  and 
to  realise  something  of  their  weakness  as  well  as  of 
their  sin.  But  they  are  not  willing  to  bear  the  shame 
and  punishment  of  their  wrongdoing.  They  en- 
deavour to  shift  the  responsibility  for  their  condition 
upon  God.  A  little  while  before  they  had  called  out, 
"Arm  of  the  Lord,  awake!  Put  on  Thy  strength  as 
in  the  ancient  time."  Do  something  for  us,  O  God. 
And  then,  in  querulous  tones,  they  continue,  *Ts  Thine 
ear  heavy?"  "Is  Thine  arm  shortened?"  What  is 
the  trouble.  Thou  God  of  Israel?  Then  God  speaks 
to  them  in  reply  and  said,  Awake!  Awake!  My 
arm  is  not  shortened :  My  ear  is  not  heavy !  It  is  you 
who  are  at  fault.  Then  God  explains  to  them  the  crux 
of  the  whole  business.  In  effect,  He  says.  Your  sins 
are  like  a  wedge.  They  have  caused  separation  be- 
tween us.  If  you  want  to  experience  the  old  sense  of 
unity,  you  must  remove  the  wedge.  You  must  cast  out 
your  sin.     Take  out  the  thing  which  alienates  you 

99 


100  REAL  RELIGION 

from  Me,  and  from  My  Power.  You  need  not  be 
weak  and  helpless.  You  may  awake  as  a  giant  re- 
freshed by  sleep.  You  need  not  suffer  defeat.  You 
may  become  conquerors  over  every  foe.  You  need  not 
live  in  the  lowlands  of  depression  and  failure ;  you  may 
climb  to  hitherto  unknown  heights  of  exaltation  and 
prosperity.  You  may  walk  with  Me  in  spiritual  high 
places.  You  may  hold  communion  with  the  Infinite. 
"Awake,  awake,  put  on  thy  strength,  O  Zion !" 

Surely,  there  never  was  greater  need  for  such  an 
exhortation  to  the  people  of  God  than  there  is  to-day. 
Where  are  our  men  of  valour  and  might?  Where  are 
our  strong  men  ?  Where  are  our  giants  in  the  service 
of  Jesus  Christ?  Where  are  the  men  and  women  in 
the  Church  whose  words  are  like  the  Pentecostal  flame, 
whose  lives  are  a  benediction,  and  the  touch  of  whose 
hands  quivers  with  healing  power?  In  every  Church, 
almost,  we  find  groups  of  so-called  believers  who  can 
work  up  much  enthusiasm  and  excitement  over  an 
entertainment,  a  social,  or  a  lecture,  but  who  dare  not 
call  their  souls  their  own  when  there  is  need  for  a  big 
sacrifice  for  Jesus  Christ,  Who  gave  Himself  for  them. 
Why  is  there  so  much  of  this  vapid,  milk-and-water 
type  of  religion?  Why  are  we  so  weak?  What 
Delilah  within  the  Church  has  been  allowed  to  shear 
our  locks  and  to  rob  us  of  our  strength?  What  is  it 
that  we  have  allowed  to  come  into  our  lives  to  sap  our 
strength  and  power?  What  is  it  that  makes  us  such 
conventional  and  ordinary  Christians  when  God  wants 
us  to  be  unconventional  and  extraordinary,  and  to  help 
Him  to  turn  the  world  upside  down,  or  right  side  up? 
The  trouble  with  most  of  us  is  that  it  is  difficult  to 


STRENGTH  AND  BEAUTY  101 

find  out  what  we  are,  or  where  we  are.  We  need  a 
distinctive  badge  or  decoration  to  show  men  and 
women  what  part  of  us  belongs  to  Jesus,  if  any. 
Something  is  surely  the  matter.  Where  are  the  men 
and  women  of  sterling  Christian  character?  Where 
are  the  people  of  God?  Where  are  the  suppliants  who 
know  how  to  grip  God's  altar  and  to  bring  down  fire 
from  heaven  upon  their  daily  sacrifice?  'Tut  on  thy 
beautiful  garments,  O  Jerusalem!" 

We  need  to  listen  to  such  words  to-day :  "Put  on  thy 
strength,  O  Zionl"  There  is  nothing  weak  or  senti- 
mental about  such  a  summons ;  such  a  command.  To 
be  a  Christian  is  to  be  the  noblest  thing  in  the  world ; 
the  strongest  thing,  the  most  beautiful  thing.  The 
man  who  goes  forth  to  live  life  as  it  ought  to  be  lived, 
who  is  linked  on  to  eternal  things,  who  walks  with 
God  in  daily  companionship,  will  grow  in  grace,  in 
strength,  and  in  beauty  until  the  angels  envy  his 
character.  "Put  on  thy  strength !"  There  are  people 
who  think  it  is  weak  to  be  a  Christian.  It  is  the 
strongest  thing  in  the  world,  and  when  you  try  it  you 
will  quickly  discover  that  human  strength  alone  is 
absolutely  futile. 

I  went  to  preach,  some  years  ago,  for  Dr.  Alexander 
McLaren,  the  prince  of  preachers.  It  was  my  privilege 
to  be  the  only  lay  evangelist  who  ever  conducted  a 
service  in  his  church.  On  my  way  to  this  par- 
ticular service,  I  encountered  five  young  fellows,  about 
21  years  of  age,  seated  by  a  lamp  post.  One  man  was 
showing  off  a  ring  on  his  little  finger  by  continuously 
feeHng  his  upper  lip  "for  the  substance  of  things  hoped 
for."     I  stepped  into  the  midst  of  the  circle  and  said, 


102  REAL  RELIGION 

"Gipsy  Smith  is  going  to  preach  near  here  to-night. 
Won't  you  go  to  hear  him?"  One  young  fellow 
repHed,  "No!  I  never  go  to  church!"  I  said,  "How 
is  that?"  He  said,  "Well,  only  women  go  to  church 
nowadays.  They  are  the  weak  ones  of  the  earth." 
I  said,  "Don't  think  that  it  is  a  sign  of  weakness  to  go 
to  church.  It  is  a  sign  of  strength  of  character,  and 
of  superior  judgment  and  outlook.  You  ought  to 
thank  God,  my  brother,  that  there  is  a  woman  in  your 
house  who  loves  God  and  prays  for  you,  and  who  wor- 
ships Him.  It  is  no  credit  to  you  that  you  allow  your 
women-folk  to  reveal  all  the  religion  that  is  in  your 
home.  Some  day  your  children  may  say  to  you, 
'Father,  if  you  had  been  like  mother,  if  you  had  been 
a  Christian,  my  life  would  have  been  better,  and  hap- 
pier too.'  It  is  a  manly,  robust  thing  to  follow  Jesus 
Christ.  Tut  on  thy  strength.'  Pull  with  your  full 
weight,  man!  Play  the  game!  If  you  are  to  do  that 
you  must  put  off  every  weakness.  You  will  have  to 
discipline  yourself;  to  deny  yourself;  to  develop  your- 
self. Pluck  out  everything  that  saps  your  manhood  and 
palsies  your  spiritual  achievement.  Tut  on  thy 
strength'." 

It  is  a  beautiful  thing  to  be  a  Christian.  It  is  not 
only  a  strong  thing;  a  useful  thing;  but  beautiful  too. 
The  other  day  I  took  a  stroll  round  some  golf  links, 
intending  to  play.  But  I  could  hardly  play  because 
I  could  not  take  my  eyes  away  from  the  beauty 
of  nature  all  around  me.  You  have  only  to  open  your 
eyes  and  look  at  a  daisy  to  understand  what  I  am 
going  to  say.  God  made  the  daisy  beautiful.  He  put 
sufficient  colours  into  the  butterfly's  wings  to  drive 


STRENGTH  AND  BEAUTY  103 

your  painters  crazy.  When  I  looked  around  that 
morning  I  saw  the  angels  at  work,  mixing  the  colours, 
on  the  morning  of  life.  When  God  makes  things, 
He  makes  them  very  beautiful,  very  lovely !  You  must 
go  to  the  woods,  the  woods  where  I  was  born,  if  you 
want  to  see  beautiful  things.  All  your  beautiful  things 
come  from  the  woods — your  pianos,  your  organs,  your 
orchestral  music,  your  harps,  your  houses,  your  taber- 
nacles, and  your  churches.  You  get  your  cradles,  and 
your  coffins  there  too.     And  listen, 

"When  I  survey  the  wondrous  Cross 
On  which  the  Prince  of  Glory  died" 

I  remember  that  if  there  had  never  been  any  woods 
there  would  never  have  been  a  Cross. 

Look  at  the  blue-bells !  And  when  God  sets  the  blue- 
bells ringing  on  a  May  morning  in  the  woods,  it  is  time 
to  pray.  Look  at  the  primrose.  I  wish  I  could  show 
you  the  English  primroses  by  the  millions  in  the  woods 
on  a  Spring  morning.  And  when  God  thinks  an  oak 
you  have  an  oak.  And  when  God  thinks  a  daisy,  you 
have  a  daisy.  When  God  thinks  a  dewdrop,  you  have 
a  dewdrop — that  crystal  palace  that  holds  the  angels ;  a 
fit  place  for  Deity,  so  pure,  so  beautiful  it  is.  When 
God  thinks  a  violet,  you  have  a  violet.  Could  it  be 
anything  else  ?  God  has  His  way  in  the  woods.  How 
is  it  that  He  does  not  have  His  way  with  you  and  me  ? 
He  wants  your  life  to  be  as  beautiful  as  the  flowers  on  a 
May  morning.  He  wants  your  heart  to  be  as  full  of 
music  as  the  woods.  My  brethren,  how  is  it  that  we 
have  not  reached  His  standard  for  us  ?     Why  have  we 


104  REAL  RELIGION 

not  risen  to  the  opportunity  of  our  high  calling?  You 
are  not  enough  like  the  King.  "Put  on  thy  beautiful 
garments."  Why  are  you  so  shabby  spiritually — so 
down-at-the-heel  in  your  moral  outlook — when  the 
Father's  wardrobe  is  full?  Why  do  people  not  say 
of  our  spiritual  progress : 

"But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home." 

Why  do  you  walk  like  an  old  religious  tramp? 
Why  don't  you  wear  the  beautiful  garments :  "the 
panoply  of  God."  Put  them  on !  Wear  them  always ! 
Be  like  Jesus !  And  if  you  are  Hke  Him  you  will  not 
need  a  banner  or  a  badge  to  let  people  know  you  are  a 
Christian.  You  will  not  need  to  label  yourself  a 
Methodist,  a  Baptist,  a  Congregationalist,  or  an  Epis- 
copalian. You  need  not  tell  any  one  what  you  are. 
If  Jesus  is  within,  He  will  make  His  presence  known. 
Your  eyes  will  reflect  the  beauty  of  His  holiness. 
They  will  shine  like  stars  of  the  morning. 

I  wonder  if  you  have  ever  heard  of  Billy  Bray? 
He  was  a  layman,  not  an  ordained  preacher,  but  a 
Cornish  miner,  and  he  helped  to  build  more  chapels 
than  any  dozen  preachers  of  his  day  and  generation. 
Billy  Bray  worked  in  the  mines,  and  then  he 
preached  until  his  wages  were  exhausted,  and  then 
went  back  to  work  for  more,  and  then  went  preaching 
again.  And  he  brought  thousands  to  God.  I  once 
stayed  with  a  dear  old  couple  who  knew  Billy  Bray 
and  they  told  me  this  story  about  him.  His  clothes 
were  getting  very  shabby  at  one  period,  and  he  had  no 


STRENGTH  AND  BEAUTY  105 

money  to  buy  more.  Everybody  who  knew  him 
thought  he  wore  "beautiful  garments,"  because  they 
loved  him.  He  was  a  poem,  a  sonnet,  dedicated  to  His 
Lord.  One  day  when  he  was  preaching  in  Cornwall 
a  strange  lady,  a  widow,  saw  and  heard  him.  She 
remembered  that  she  possessed  a  wardrobe  full  of  her 
fate  husband's  clothes,  and  at  the  close  of  the  service 
she  said,  **Billy,  I  should  like  to  give  you  a  suit  of 
clothes,  yours  are  shabby!"  "Yes,"  replied  Billy. 
"They  are  because  I  have  worn  them  out."  "I  should 
Hke  you  to  have  them,"  said  the  lady  doubtfully,  "but 
I  am  not  certain  they  would  fit  you."  "Did  the  Lord 
tell  you  to  offer  them  to  me  ?"  asked  Billy.  "I  am  sure 
He  did,"  the  lady  replied.  "Then  I  am  sure  they  will 
fit,  because  He  knows  my  measure  exactly,"  was  Billy's 
prompt  reply.  And  when  God  says  to  you,  "Put  on 
thy  beautiful  garments,"  everything  will  surely  fit.  He 
knows ! 

I  want  to  ask  Christian  people  a  question.  How  is  it 
that  we  are  not  as  good  as  we  might  be?  How  is  it 
that  our  homes  are  not  such  altars  of  the  Most  High 
as  He  meant  them  to  be  ?  How  is  it  that  the  harmony 
which  ought  to  exist  in  every  Christian  home  is  spoiled 
so  often  by  false  notes  and  discords?  Nothing  alien- 
ates people  from  Christ  more  than  cross  purposes  in  the 
home-life.  How  is  it  that  in  these  respects  we  are  so 
unlike  Jesus? 

I  was  staying  in  a  beautiful  home  some  time  ago;  I 
was  there  with  the  hope  of  winning  my  host,  the  hus- 
band and  father,  for  Jesus  Christ.  The  hostess  was  a 
fine  woman,  a  church  worker  and  member.  I  had  been 
there  a  week  when  one  morning  I  came  down  to  break- 


106  REAL  RELIGION 

fast  and  realised  immediately  that  something  had  gone 
wrong.  The  children  did  not  run  to  greet  me  as  they 
had  done  on  other  mornings.  I  did  not  see  the  hus- 
band until  the  breakfast-gong  had  sounded,  and  when 
the  family  were  seated,  they  remained  silent.  The 
hostess  barely  looked  at  me  when  she  said,  "Blessing, 
please !"  The  husband  ate  his  meal  in  silence.  So  did 
I !  The  children  were  in  tears,  and  when  they  got  up, 
went  off  to  school  without  kissing  father  and  mother 
"good-bye."  I  went  to  my  room  and  stayed  there  until 
eleven  o'clock.  Then  there  was  a  knock  at  my  door. 
I  knew  that  it  was  the  lady  who  wished  to  speak  to  me. 
I  said,  "Come  in!'*  She  said,  "I  am  very  sorry  for 
whajt  happened  this  morning!"  I  said,  "You  ought  to 
be!"  Then  I  continued,  "You  know  this  is  Friday 
morning.  I  had  hoped  that  I  had  reached  your  hus- 
band. He  did  seem  to  be  interested  and  I  thought  I 
had  got  hold  of  him,  but  you  have  spoiled  the  whole 
thing  this  morning!"  She  replied,  "But  I  did  not  say 
anything  to  him."  "No!"  I  said,  "but  you  looked 
a  great  deal."  She  burst  into  tears  and  said,  "That  has 
been  my  life-long  failing — my  inability  to  control  my 
temper.  I  have  prayed  and  fought  against  this  beset- 
ment,  but  every  now  and  again  it  gets  the  mastery  over 
me."  I  said,  "Sister,  you  need  to  let  the  Lord  Jesus 
come  into  your  heart  and  reign  there.  He  will  master 
your  evil  temper  for  you!  Put  on  your  beautiful 
garments!  Become  like  the  Lord  Jesus.  Then  you 
will  win  your  loved  ones  for  Him  by  the  beauty  of  your 
character  and  the  humility  of  your  life.  God  wants 
you  to  be  as  sweet  as  the  flowers  in  Spring ;  as  fragrant 
as  the  clover  in  June;  as  glorious  as  a  rose  bedecked 


STRENGTH  AND  BEAUTY  107 

with  morning  dew.  Your  beautiful  garments  will  be 
'winsome' — and  you  will  win  those  you  love  for  Him 
to  love  too." 

I  should  like  to  speak  to  you  about  many  other 
things  you  will  have  to  put  on,  but  let  me  say  this : 
"Suppose  every  one  of  you  were  to  put  on  here  and 
now  a  determination  that  he  would  lovingly  and  ten- 
derly speak  to  a  friend  or  neighbour  about  Jesus." 
That  we  would  find  some  one  who  does  not  know  God, 
and  bring  them  into  contact  with  Him.  Would  not  that 
be  lovely  ?  There  are  more  people  ready  for  that  mes- 
sage than  you  realise.  There  are  more  people  who  are 
hungering  and  thirsting  after  righteousness  than  you 
suppose.  There  are  more  people  disappointed  with  you 
and  me  that  we  have  not  delivered  that  message  than 
you  imagine.  You  and  I  must  study  God  afresh — get 
into  closer  contact  with  Jesus  Christ — get  to  know  the 
mind  and  will  of  the  Master,  so  that  we  can  interpret 
Him  aright  to  those  who  need  His  salvation,  His 
power,  and  His  love.  All  about  you  there  are  people 
longing  for  sympathy,  love,  some  word  about  Jesus. 
Put  on  your  beautiful  garments — ^become  like  Him — 
then  go  forth  in  His  name  to  speak  the  word  that 
brings  pardon,  peace,  comfort,  strength,  and  life,  to  sin- 
sick  souls.  You  may  have  to  fight  hard  to  accomplish 
this  task,  but  some  day  you  may  come  to  Him  as  a  con- 
queror, with  the  marks  of  the  fight  still  upon  you. 
"Bring  forth  the  best  robe  and  put  it  upon  him."  I 
sometimes  wonder  what  the  best  robe  is ;  what  it  stands 
for;  what  it  means.  I  want  to  be  ready  to  wear  it. 
God  help  us  all  to  get  a  robe !  Only  those  whose  hearts 
are  right  with  God,  who  have  turned  their  backs  upon 


108  REAL  RELIGION 

sin,  who  have  left  the  swine-troughs  and  the  far  coun- 
try, and  have  returned  to  their  Father^s  house,  can  have 
a  robe.  I  wonder  if  you  have  done  all  this — if  you 
will  do  it  now!  I  know  what  my  Lord  would  like  to 
see.  He  would  like  to  see  all  of  you  in  your  beautiful 
garments.  "Put  on  thy  strength,  O  Zion;  put  on 
thy  beautiful  garments,  O  Jerusalem!'*  The  King  is 
coming  this  way.     Let  us  all  be  ready  to  greet  him ! 


X 

JESUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE 


'\ 


JESUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE 

Texts  "After  these  things  there  was  a  feast  of  the 
Jews;  and  Jesus  went  up  to  Jerusalem.  Now  there  is 
at  Jerusalem  by  the  sheep  market  a  pool,  which  is  called 
in  the  Hebrew  tongue  Bethesda,  having  five  porches. 
In  these  lay  a  great  multitude  of  impotent  folk,  of  blind, 
halt,  withered,  waiting  for  the  moving  of  the  water." 
St.  John.    Chapter  5,  Verses  i,  2  and  5. 

This  is  a  wonderful  story.  I  want  you  to  remember 
that  Jesus  had  been  up  to  Jerusalem  before.  This  was 
not  His  first  visit.  ^'J^sus  went  up  to  Jerusalem. 
Now,  there  is  at  Jerusalem  by  the  sheep  market  a  pool." 
Why  connect  that  pool  with  Jesus? 

Jesus  had  been  heard  and  seen.  His  words  had  at- 
tracted attention.  The  people  had  spoken  of  Him 
to  their  friends  and  neighbours,  spoken  of  His 
mysterious  personality,  His  new  and  wonderful  gospel. 
When  I  remember  this,  and  think  about  the  story, 
one  question  immediately  arises  in  my  mind.  Why 
did  not  the  people  of  the  city  interest  themselves 
a  little  in  this  pool,  and  in  the  people  around  it? 
Surely  they  knew  something  of  the  suffering,  the 
pain,  and  the  mental  agony  of  the  people  waiting 
to  be  healed.  Surely  they  knew  something  of  this 
everyday  tragedy  of  withered  bodies  and  broken  lives. 
Surely  the  people  who  lived  in  the  city,  the  religious 
people,  the  people  who  went  up  to  the  Temple  regularly 

111 


112  REAL  RELIGION 

to  worship,  the  people  who  held  responsible  positions 
in  the  city;  surely  they  knew  something  of  the  hopes 
and  heartaches  associated  with  the  pool?  They  had 
seen  the  pool,  it  was  a  public  place ;  they  knew  all  about 
it.  Why,  then,  did  they  not  concern  themselves  with 
this  conglomeration  of  human  suffering  and  need? 
Surely  the  people  of  the  city  did  know  something  about 
these  broken  bodies,  and  weary  limbs,  and  weeping 
eyes !  If  they  did  not,  they  ought  to  have  known;  and 
not  to  know  was  cruelty,  and  not  to  care  was  worse. 
To  take  no  steps  towards  alleviating  that  mass  of  suf- 
fering and  drying  its  tears  was  diabolical.  Surely 
these  people  knew  what  was  going  on  day  by  day  at 
the  pool  called  Bethesda. 

Listen!  Why  did  not  these  people  in  high  places, 
these  religious  leaders  of  the  people,  why  did  they  not 
go  to  Jesus  and  say:  "Here,  Nazarene,  we  have  no 
use  for  you,  no  behef  in  you;  but  go  down  to 
the  pool.  We  can  show  you  something  which  will 
keep  you  busy.  Come  with  us  down  to  the  pool! 
There  are  people  there,  blind  people,  lame  peo- 
ple, withered  people,  waiting  for  a  healer,  waiting 
for  somebody  to  give  them  a  chance;  to  bring  them 
hope.  Come  with  us  and  see  what  you  can  do  with 
them,  and  for  them.  That  would  seem  a  reasonable 
proposition;  a  reasonable  test  of  Christ's  power;  a 
reasonable  exhibition  of  their  own  sympathy  in  the 
sorrows  and  sufferings  of  their  fellows.  Why  didn't 
these  people  in  Jerusalem  feel  enough,  and  care  enough, 
to  do  a  thing  like  that?  It  was  for  the  same  reason 
that  many  Christian  people  have  not  been  to  a  prayer 
meeting  lately ;  for  the  same  reason  that  many  religious 


JESUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE  118 

people  have  not  gone  down  on  their  knees  lately  to  pray 
for  the  people  around  the  pools  in  their  own  town  or 
city;  for  the  sick,  blind,  halt  and  withered  folk  all 
around  them.  There  are  "pools  of  Bethesda"  every- 
where and  if  we  do  not  know  where  they  are  it  is  be- 
cause we  do  not  want  to  know;  because  we  have  not 
taken  the  trouble  to  find  out;  because  we  have 
been  so  pre-occupied  about  other  things  that  we  have 
neglected  the  King's  business.  If  we  have  not 
heard  sighs  and  sobs  to-day  which  rent  the  heart ;  seen 
sights  to-day  that  brought  tears  unbidden  to  our  eyes ; 
heard  something  to-day  that  racks  our  brain  and  robs 
us  of  our  Smug  contentment  and  self-satisfaction  and 
teaches  us  to  think  more  of  Christ  and  His  lost  ones, 
it  is  just  because  we  have  not  taken  the  time  or  the 
trouble  to  pray,  or  think,  or  understand,  or  to 
learn  the  genius  of  the  Cross  and  the  heart  of  Christ's 
gospel. 

The  fact  is,  we  do  not  know  how  to  pray.  We  do 
not  really  understand  what  Prayer  is.  We  say  a  few 
prayers,  and  God  calls  them  "much  speaking."  We 
touch  the  door  of  mercy  with  kid  gloves,  and  then  only 
with  the  tips  of  our  gloved  fingers.  If  we  could  only 
realise  what  sin  is;  and  what  the  great,  throbbing, 
pulsating  power  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  can  do 
for  the  sinner,  we  should  pelt  heaven  with  our  prayers 
for  the  sufferers  on  the  fringe  of  Bethesda.  We  should 
get  on  our  knees  and  refuse  to  get  up  until  every  suf- 
fering, sin-stricken  man  or  woman  had  been  healed  and 
saved  by  Jesus.  We  do  not  know  how  to  pray  yet. 
If  I  came  to  your  house,  could  you  show  me  the  place 
where  you  kneel  regularly  for  family  prayer  ?     Family 


114  REAL  RELIGION 

prayer  is  beginning  to  be  a  lost  art.  If  I  asked  you 
to  bring  the  Bible  you  use  regularly  for  family  worship 
could  you  do  it?  How  often  do  you  take  your  child 
aside  and  pray  with  him — or  her?  You  say,  "Oh!  I 
pray  for  him,  for  her !"  Do  you  pray  with  your  child? 
Do  you  pray  with  your  maid?  Have  you  religion 
enough  to  do  that?  Your  maid  has  a  soul;  she  is  not 
a  chattel.  Do  you  expect  to  see  your  friends  and 
neighbours,  your  husband,  your  wife,  your  children 
converted  if  you  do  not  pray?  Do  you  talk  to  them 
about  the  things  of  God?  Are  you  concerned,  inter- 
ested, infatuated  with  the  business  of  bringing  them  to 
Christ  ?  Are  you  so  grieved  when  you  see  people  god- 
less and  prayerless  that  you  are  compelled  to  speak  to 
them  about  the  things  which  really  matter ;  about  death 
and  judgment  and  Eternal  Life?  That  is  the  spirit  of 
the  New  Testament,  of  Calvary,  of  Pentecost;  and  it 
is  the  spirit  of  the  Epistles.  It  is  that  spirit  which  you 
and  I  have  to  get  if  we  are  to  do  anything  for  Christ 
in  our  own  city  or  town.  We  must  live  in  the  spirit 
of  prayer ;  desire  to  pray ;  love  to  pray — that  humanity 
may  be  healed.  The  weak  spot  in  our  religious  life 
to-day  is  the  lack  of  power  to  pray.  We  can  fill  our 
Church  parlours  and  lecture  halls  for  a  dramatic  enter-  ^ 
tainment,  a  concert,  or  a  recital — but  not  often  for  a 
prayer  meeting.  Is  this  not  so?  Yet  the  weak  spot 
in  our  religious  life  should  be  our  chief  source  of 
strength.  The  Church  of  God  was  born  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  prayer.  The  Church  which  loses  the  power 
to  pray  has  no  right  to  call  herself  a  Church  of  God. 
Do  you  love  the  place  of  prayer?  Why  did  not  these 
people  go  to  Jesus  and  say :  "Come,  Jesus,  down  to  the 


JESUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE  115 

pool."  Why  did  not  some  of  the  friends  of  the  suf- 
ferers go  to  Him?  Why  were  they  not  concerned? 
Simply  because  they  were  indifferent;  and  it  is  this 
spirit  of  indifference  which  is  paralysing  the  power  of 
the  gospel  in  many  places  to-day.  Just  as  soon  as 
professing  Christians  realise  the  need  for  prayer,  the 
privilege  of  prayer,  and  the  power  of  prayer,  just  so 
soon  will  the  healing — the  revival  of  life  and  energy — 
come  in  overwhelming,  irresistible,  strength-giving 
force.     Lord,  teach  us  how  to  pray. 

In  the  midst  of  a  series  of  evangelistic  meetings,  a 
woman  who  had  been  a  nominal  Christian,  a  nominal 
Church  member,  was  tremendously  converted.  She 
was  not  a  Christian,  because  there  is  sometimes  a  big 
difference  between  a  Church  member  and  a  Christian. 
You  are  not  a  Christian  if  you  are  a  Church  member 
only.  You  are  not  a  Christian  unless  you  are  Christ's 
man  or  woman;  unless  you  have  been  born  again; 
unless  sin  in  your  life  has  been  given  up.  You  have 
no  right  to  that  holy  title  of  Christian  until  you  are 
Christ's.  Then  you  will  not  need  a  label.  When  you 
are  born  again  everybody  will  know  it.  If  you  and  I 
could  visit  together  some  of  our  lovely  English  vales 
in  the  early  springtime  of  the  year,  when  the  skylarks 
and  the  linnets,  the  thrushes  and  the  finches  sing  the 
songs  of  the  angels  ''wrapped  in  feathers;"  when  the 
flowers  are  in  bloom  and  everywhere  the  landscape 
looks  as  if  God  had  broken  up  a  rainbow  into  frag- 
ments and  scattered  them  at  our  feet,  what  would  you 
think  of  me  if  I  stood  in  the  midst  of  all  this  tran- 
scendent beauty  with  a  paint-brush,  attempting  to  paint 
the  lilies  and  the  roses,  and  saying  to  you  as  I  did  so 


116  REAL  RELIGION 

"This  is  Spring/'  When  God's  Spring  comes  into  the 
human  soul  there  is  no  need  of  a  paint-brush  to  depict 
its  glory.  Everybody  knows  about  it.  We  need  a 
paint-brush  when  the  Spring  is  not  there;  when  the 
glow  and  colour  and  beauty  is  absent ;  and  that  is  why 
some  people  are  so  particular  in  saying,  "I  am  a  Chris- 
tian!" If  they  were  Christians,  there  would  be  no 
need  for  them  to  talk  about  it.  We  should  see  it  in 
their  every  thought  and  word  and  deed.  The  light 
of  God  would  shine  in  their  lives,  like  the  dawn  that 
breaks  over  the  cliff-tops  of  Eternity.  Oh,  God,  let 
that  light  arise  and  shine  now ! 

This  woman,  then,  had  been  a  nominal  Christian. 
And  the  word  "nominal"  in  the  dictionary  means  "un- 
real." This  woman  was  converted  one  Sunday  night. 
She  was  the  mother  of  six  boys,  and  on  Monday  night 
she  brought  one  of  them  to  the  meeting;  on  Tuesday 
another ;  and  on  Wednesday  another ;  on  Thursday  she 
brought  two;  and  on  Friday  she  brought  a  motherless 
youth,  a  lad  of  17,  who  Hved  near  by.  On  Saturday 
night  there  was  a  testimony  Meeting;  and  I  saw  her 
get  up,  and  heard  her  speak.  Her  face  was  a  revel- 
ation of  the  glorious  light  within.  She  said,  "God 
has  done  great  things  for  me  this  week.  He  saved 
me  last  Sunday,  and  there  and  then  I  started  to  pray 
for  my  boys  and  husband.  He  has  saved  five  of  my 
boys — and  this  motherless  youth.  To-morrow,  my 
husband  will  be  saved.  He  is  a  blasphemer.  He 
does  not  know  I  have  been  praying  for  him.  He  and 
my  first-born  will  be  converted  to-morrow.  God  is 
going  to  give  them  to  me — both."  I  cannot  describe 
the  thrill  that  passed  through  the  audience  when  that 


JESUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE  117 

woman,  with  a  faith  so  triumphant,  made  that  state- 
ment. I  said,  *'Let  us  pray;"  and  closed  the  meeting 
with  prayer.  The  next  morning  the  husband,  who 
was  a  signalman  on  the  railway,  and  had  been  working 
all  night,  left  his  signal-box  at  six  o'clock  and  went 
home.  ''Let  me  have  some  breakfast  as  soon  as  you 
can,"  he  said  to  his  wife.  'T  want  what  little  sleep  I 
can  get  this  morning,  for  I  am  going  to  hear  that  man, 
Gipsy  Smith,  both  afternoon  and  night."  His  wife 
replied,  "Yes :  that  is  right.  We  have  been  praying 
for  you."  'Tor  me?"  said  the  husband.  "Yes,"  was 
the  quiet  reply,  "God  saved  me  last  Sunday,  and  five 
of  the  children  have  been  brought  into  the  Kingdom 
during  the  week,  so  we  have  been  praying  together  for 
you."  "For  me?"  the  man  repeated  once  again. 
"Yes,"  said  his  wife,  "Gipsy  Smith  prayed  for  you  last 
night  and  all  present  in  the  Church  said,  'Amen.'  " 
"What  time  was  that?"  said  the  husband.  "About 
half -past  eight,"  replied  the  wife.  For  a  moment  the 
man  said  nothing,  but  a  look  of  intense  wonderment 
came  into  his  eyes.  Then  he  said  slowly,  "That  is 
strange.  At  half-past  eight  the  line  was  clear.  I  had 
nothing  to  do  for  a  while  but  to  sit  and  think.  I 
thought  of  you,  and  of  the  children,  and  of  the  wicked 
life  I  had  lived,  and  something — some  one — said, 
'You  ought  to  be  a  Christian,  for  your  wife's  sake, 
and  for  your  children's  sake_,  and  for  your  own  sake/ 
It  was  then,"  continued  the  husband,  "that  I  threw 
myself  on  the  cabin  floor  and  prayed  to  the  God  of 
my  mother  for  peace  and  mercy."  That  woman's  faith 
gripped  her  husband  and  gripped  God,  and  brought 
them  together;  and  the  husband  is  a  successful  local 


118  REAL  RELIGION 

preacher  in  my  own  Wesleyan  Methodist  Church  to- 
day. 

But  why  did  the  sufferers  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda  not 
come  to  Jesus?  They  were  blind  and  could  not  see; 
they  were  deaf  and  could  not  hear,  they  were  lame  and 
could  not  walk.  So,  when  Jesus  said  to  one  man, 
"Wilt  thou  be  made  whole  ?"  the  sufferer  put  the  whole 
case  for  himself  and  the  others  into  a  nutshell,  and 
said,  "Sir,  I  have  no  man  ...  to  put  me  into  the 
pool."  There  was  the  trouble!  To-day,  in  every 
large  city  and  town,  thousands  are  saying  the  same 
thing. 

We  are  church-goers — ^but  are  we  spiritual?  We 
are  religious — but  are  we  soul-winners?  We  bear  the 
name  of  Christ — but  have  we  His  Spirit?  We  take 
the  Cup  of  Communion  with  Him — but  are  we  shar- 
ing His  Cross  ?  Are  we  beneath  the  weight  of  a  with- 
ered world,  helping  to  lift  sinful  humanity  a  little 
nearer  to  God?  That  is  the  Christ  spirit!  Have  we 
got  that?  The  Christ  spirit  concerns  itself  with  the 
suffering,  the  sorrowing,  the  dying,  the  blind,  the  sick, 
the  lame,  the  lost,  and  seeks  to  bring  them  all  back  to 
the  healing  hand  and  Father-heart  of  God.  Are  you 
doing  that?    You  know — and  God  knows. 

Now  let  me  turn  the  picture  round  for  a  moment. 
Are  there  not  these  three  classes  in  every  church — 
the  blind,  the  halt,  and  the  withered?  I  find  them 
everywhere,  and  especially  in  churches.  People  who 
do  not  see,  and,  what  is  more,  do  not  want  to  see;  do 
not  want  to  be  disturbed;  to  be  interrupted.  They 
would  rather  you  cried,  "Peace!"  They  are  blinded 
by  the  god  of  this  world.     Are  you  one  of  them? 


JESUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE  119 

Are  you  conscious  of  your  need?  Do  you  feel  your 
desperate  condition?  Do  you  see  your  sin?  Do  you 
see  it  in  the  light  of  Christ's  Cross — for  that  is  how 
God  sees  it.  He  sees  sin  from  Bethlehem  to  Golgotha. 
That  is  the  measure  of  your  sin — and  mine.  Do  you 
see  sin  as  God  sees  it,  in  all  its  blackness,  hideousness ; 
its  damning,  paralysing  power  ?  We  shall  never  under- 
stand the  height  of  Calvary  until  we  sound  the  depths 
of  our  own  sin.  When  we  get  a  clear  vision  of  our 
own  sin  we  still  cry  out  for  a  Saviour.  I  think,  if 
we  felt  our  sin  as  God  sees  our  need  for  salvation,  we 
should  fall  on  our  knees  and  forget  about  everything 
and  everybody  and  cry  out,  "Oh!  God,  save  me  or  I 
die!"  Nobody  needs  to  pray  that  prayer  more  than  I 
do.  "Save  me  or  I  die!"  Are  we  bHnd?  Remember 
that  we  may  see ! 

Then  there  are  people  in  the  Church  who  are  lame; 
people  who  are  sometimes  up  and  sometimes  down; 
people  you  are  never  sure  of;  sometimes  they  are 
within  sight  of  victory;  and  then  within  the  shadow 
of  defeat.  They  are  lame.  They  always  want  a 
spiritual  hospital.  Is  that  your  case?  Are  you  spirit- 
ually maimed  ?  And  then  there  are  the  withered ;  who 
are  they?  A  withered  arm  is  bad  enough;  but 
a  withered  soul!  Can  you  imagine  that?  Use- 
less, lifeless,  drooping,  hanging,  a  burden,  a  weariness 
— dead,  twice  dead — a  backslider!  There  are  two 
types  of  backsliders;  the  public-backslider  and  the 
heart-backslider.  The  heart-backslider  keeps  his  posi- 
tion in  the  Church  but  he  is  the  more  dangerous,  and  a 
greater  hindrance  to  the  Church  than  the  public- 
backslider.     You  know  how  to  treat  the  latter  man  or 


120  REAL  RELIGION 

woman.  It  is  the  man  in  the  pew,  who  has  forsaken 
God,  who  is  the  menace  to  the  Church  of  God.  Come 
out  of  your  hiding-place  and  get  right  again  with  God. 
The  Wind,  the  halt,  the  withered;  here  they  are — 
all  about  us.  If  you  get  them  to  face  the  fact  of  their 
condition  they  might  say,  "Oh!  yes,  but  it  will  be  all 
right  some  day.  We  are  waiting  for  the  moving  of 
the  waters!"  Perhaps  they  are  waiting  for  a  revival 
that  will  sweep  them  into  the  healing  pool.  Let  them 
get  on  their  knees  and  the  revival  will  begin.  The 
waters  of  Salvation  are  moving ;  they  have  been  moving 
ever  since  Jesus  died.  The  waters  of  life  and  of  heal- 
ing, the  rivers  of  grace  and  of  life  eternal,  are  at  our 
feet  within  our  reach,  and  we  may  step  in,  and  God's 
tide,  if  we  will  let  it,  will  lift  us  out  of  our  sin  to  God. 
The  Lord  help  you  to  step  in  now.  Some  of 
you  have  been  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  pool  so  long 
that  our  hearts  move  us  to  give  you  a  push  and  have 
you  in,  but  we  cannot  do  it.  When  the  waters  were 
troubled  it  was  the  one  who  stepped  in  that  was  made 
whole;  and  when  Jesus  came  to  this  scene  of  human 
misery,  He  said  to  the  man  who  was  healed,  "Arise" 
— and  he  had  to  get  up.  Your  salvation  depends  upon 
your  obedience  to  this  Divine  command.  While  you 
wait  you  can  never  be  saved.  Inactive,  you  will  never 
know  victory.  Sit  still,  and  never  take  the  step  toward 
God,  and  you  will  never  realise  His  forgiveness,  His 
healing  power.  His  mercy,  and  His  love.  You  may 
wait  until  Doomsday  and  never  be  healed.  You  get 
healed  by  movement,  obedience,  repentance,  surrender, 
confession.     God  help  us  all  to  get  a  little  nearer  now 


JESUS  AND  THE  PEOPLE  121 

to  the  moving  stream,  the  healing  waters,  the  cleans- 
ing fountain  "opened  for  us  on  Calvary's  hill.'* 

Brother,  where  are  you?     Sister,  do  you  know  the 
Saviour?    He  is  very  near  to  you  at  this  moment. 

"Closer  is  He  than  breathing, 
Nearer  than  hands  or  feet." 

Close  your  eyes  and  speak  to  Him  of  your  great  need. 
Say  to  Him,  **Lord  Jesus,  make  me  whole.  I  want 
to  be  whole.  Heal  my  poor,  withered,  maimed  life; 
my  broken  heart ;  my  weakness ;  my  sin.  Lord,  Thou 
knowest  all  about  me.  Thou  art  the  Saviour  of  men, 
and  my  Saviour.  Save  me  now."  If  that  prayer 
comes  from  your  heart,  the  good  Lord  will  answer  it 
quicker  than  it  takes  me  to  tell  you  about  it.  The 
Lord  help  you  to  put  Him  to  the  test  at  this  moment. 
This  is  the  place  of  healing  for  sin-sick  souls ;  there  is 
— here  and  now — a  moving  of  the  waters — the  pool  of 
Bethesda.  May  you  step  in  and  come  forth  healed  in 
spirit,  purified  in  heart,  strengthened  in  soul,  and  with 
a  beauty  born  of  that  holiness  which  is  the  gift  of  God 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 


XI 

CHRIST  IN  THE  HOME! 


XI 

CHRIST  IN  THE  HOME! 

Text:  "And  she  being  instructed  of  her  mother." 
St.  Matthew.    Chapter  14,  Verse  8. 

The  Mother  makes  the  home!  What  the  mothers 
of  the  nation  are  to-day,  the  children  very  largely  will 
be  to-morrow.  The  mothers  of  our  race  are  moulding 
the  life  of  the  race,  and  the  character  of  the  race.  The 
prosperity  and  progress  of  the  world  of  to-morrow 
depends  upon  the  mothers  of  to-day. 

I  saw  this  in  France,  in  the  blood  and  mud  of  the 
trenches.  I  saw  it  in  the  hospitals,  where  the  broken, 
bruised  and  torn  bodies  of  men  were  healed  and  re- 
stored. I  heard  it  from  the  lips  of  the  dying.  It  makes 
all  the  difference  in  such  circumstances  if  a  boy  can 
recall  the  memory  of  a  good  mother.  And  in  other 
walks  of  life,  whether  a  girl  has  a  good  mother  or  a 
bad  one.  I  will  tell  you  something  from  a  man*s  stand- 
point. A  man  never  gets  over  the  disaster  of  a  bad 
mother.  He  never  gets  away  from  the  benediction  of 
a  good  one.  If  a  boy  grows  up  without  a  mother *s 
loving  care,  life  is  never  the  same  to  him!  I  am  going 
to  tell  you  a  heart  secret.  My  mother  left  me  when  I 
was  but  six  years  of  age.  I  have  never  known  a 
mother's  love  and  my  heart  has  been  starved  for  the 
want  of  it.  I  think  my  character  and  my  life  would 
have  been  richer  and  fuller — my  influence  and  work 
in  the  world  greater — if  I  had  but  known  the  sweetness 

125 


126  REAL  RELIGION 

of  a  mother's  love,  listened  to  the  music  of  a  mother's 
prayer,  and  been  sheltered  by  a  mother's  arms  when  I 
was  a  child.  If  I  had  a  Christian  mother  to-day  I 
should  always  want  her  near,  always  want  her  inspir- 
ation and  help,  always  preach  for  her  my  best  sermons, 
always  reveal  to  her  the  secrets  I  could  never  share  with 
anybody  else.  It  makes  all  the  difference  to  a  boy, 
even  when  he  has  grown  up  and  has  reached  manhood, 
if  his  mother  is  a  godly  woman  and  not  a  worldly 
woman;  if  she  is  a  Christ-like  woman  and  not  a  Christ- 
less  woman;  if  she  thinks  more  of  the  soul  of  her  child 
than  she  does  about  keeping  her  fingers  in  order,  or 
about  the  style  of  her  next  hat.  God  help  the  child 
of  a  bad  mother.  God  help  a  little  baby  if  its  mother 
thinks  more  of  a  dance,  or  a  bridge  party,  or  a  social 
function  of  any  kind,  than  she  does  of  caring  for  the 
little  one;  if  she  gives  the  baby  something  to  send  it 
off  to  sleep  whilst  she  goes  off  to  play  the  fool  or  ac- 
company the  devil.  God  have  mercy  on  the  child  of 
such  a  mother. 

A  lady,  one  of  the  aristocracy  of  France,  once  sat 
by  the  side  of  the  Emperor,  Napoleon,  at  a  great  din- 
ner. "My  Emperor,  will  you  tell  me  what  it  is  France 
needs  most  at  this  present  hour?"  she  said.  The  great 
Napoleon  turned  to  the  lady  and  said,  quietly, 
"France  needs  most  of  all  mothers."  And  if  you 
ask  me  what  Britain,  America,  Austraha,  or  any 
other  country  in  the  world  needs  most  of  all  to-day,  my 
reply  would  be  the  same — "Just  mothers — good 
mothers,  godly  mothers !"  If  we  preachers  could  win 
the  motherhood  of  the  world  for  Christ,  the  world 
would  be  His  Kingdom,  within  a  very  short  time. 


CHRIST  IN  THE  HOME!  127 

Many  young  people  are  saying  to-day,  *lt  would  be 
much  easier  for  me  to  be  a  Christian  if  my  mother  was 
a  Christian.  Of  course,  she  goes  to  church.  But  that 
is  about  all  there  is  in  her  religion.  I  can  get  no  help 
from  her  for  my  spiritual  nature;  no  food  for  my 
spiritual  life  and  growth !"  You  can  imagine  how  dif- 
ferent it  is  for  the  young  man  or  woman  who  desires 
to  follow  Christ,  if  the  home-life  is  worldly,  if  God 
is  left  out  of  the  family's  programme,  if  Christ  is  not 
the  Head  of  the  house  and  the  chief  Guest  at  the  table, 
if  spiritual  things  are  not  given  their  rightful  place. 
In  such  a  home,  to  be  a  disciple,  is  doubly  hard,  it  is 
not  "the  thing,"  not  fashionable,  and  so  the  young 
convert  dislikes  to  be  considered  eccentric  and  peculiar, 
and  just  goes  with  the  stream — drifts  further  and  fur- 
ther away  from  Jesus,  the  source  of  all  strength  and 
joy. 

What  hope  is  there  for  children  in  such  an  atmos- 
phere ?  You  mothers  have  to  take  your  stand  for  God 
and  for  Truth  in  the  home,  take  your  stand  for 
Jesus  Christ  against  all  the  forces  that  would  cause 
your  boys  and  girls  to  drift  and  sink.  I  have 
seen  little  children  in  some  homes  follow  the  example 
of  their  parents  and  take  up  the  morning  newspaper 
and  look  first  of  all  for  the  news  from  the  Divorce 
Court.  Why?  Because  in  such  homes  the  sanctity 
of  the  marriage-tie  nas  been  degraded,  and  the  moral 
standard  has  been  lowered,  so  that  even  the  children 
revel  in  the  stories  of  wrong-doing  and  shame.  In  up- 
holding the  sanctities  of  the  home,  of  marriage,  of 
womanhood,  the  mother  holds  the  key  to  the  position. 
If    women    are    true    to    themselves,    their    homes. 


128  REAL  RELIGION 

their  sisters,  men  would  be  compelled  to  live  purer  and 
happier  lives.  If  every  woman  in  Britain  and  in 
America  was  to  take  her  stand  for  Jesus  the  Divorce 
Courts  of  both  countries  would  have  to  be  closed  up. 
You  know  this  is  true !     You  know  it ! 

What  kind  of  impression  does  your  home-life  give 
to  your  children?  You  cannot  teach  them  what  you 
do  not  know !  You  cannot  give  them  what  you  do  not 
possess !  If  you  have  an  empty  cupboard  you  cannot 
provide  food  for  your  child.  If  you,  yourself,  are  not 
right  with  God,  you  cannot  influence  your  child  God- 
ward.  It  is  essentially  true  that  "The  hand  that  rocks 
the  cradle,  rules  the  world!"  And  I  covet  for  my 
Lord  the  magnificent  personality,  the  mighty  power, 
the  wonderful  influence  of  the  Motherhood  of  our  land. 
He  is  worthy  of  it  all.  He  wants  you  Mothers.  He 
wants  you  to  help  His  cause !  He  wants  you  to  win  the 
world  for  Him;  for  righteousness,  for  purity,  for 
peace.  How  often  have  boys  come  to  me  and  said, 
"Sir,  I  was  just  pushed  out  into  the  world !"  This  was 
the  language  of  one  boy  in  France  He  was  dying  and  I 
was  trying  to  help  him  to  pray.  ''Sonny,"  I  said, 
"don't  you  know  one  little  prayer?"  "No,  sir,"  he 
whispered,  "I  was  pushed  out  into  the  world  without 
any  prayer ;  my  mother  never  taught  me  to  pray !"  God 
help  any  boy  or  girl  who  has  to  make  that  confession. 
Some  people  never  wake  up  to  the  importance  of  godli- 
ness in  the  home  until  their  boys  and  girls  have  gone  to 
the  devil.  Then  they  discover  it  was  they  who 
helped  to  send  them  there.  It  is  not  easy  to  sing, 
"Where  is  my  wandering  boy  to-night"  when  you 
realise  that  he  is  in  the  far  country,  eating  out  his 


CHRIST  IN  THE  HOME!  U9 

heart  in  the  swine-trough,  and  you  did  nothing  to 
hinder  him  from  getting  there.  You  were  frivolous! 
You  were  godless !  You  were  in  the  world  when  you 
ought  to  have  been  in  the  Church.  You  missed  your 
opportunity  to  mould  and  fashion  your  child  in  the 
likeness  of  Christ  Jesus,  when  his  character  was  in  a 
plastic  and  formative  state;  when  you  had  a  chance: 
to  fashion  him  according  to  the  mind  of  the  Master. 
Mothers,  it  is  a  solemn  thing  to  realise  that  you,  per- 
haps above  everybody  else,  will  be  held  responsible  at 
the  bar  of  God  for  the  fate,  the  destiny,  of  your  child- 
ren. Make  no  mistake  about  that — it  is  so!  Some 
mothers  bemoan  the  fact  that  their  children  are 
gamblers.  What  about  you?  I  was  recently  in  a 
city  where  in  one  of  the  homes  the  only  son  came  down 
to  breakfast  one  morning  with  a  bundle  of  American 
dollar  notes  in  his  hands.  "What  have  you  got  there?'* 
queried  his  mother.  "Two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
won  at  cards  last  night,"  was  the  reply.  The  mother 
was  shocked  and  horrified.  "My  boy  a  gambler,"  she 
said  at  length.  "Yes!"  he  said.  "But  do  you  know 
your  mother  is  a  leading  member  and  an  official  in  the 
Church  ?"  she  asked.  "Yes,  I  know  that !"  he  admitted. 
"Then  you  must  take  that  money  and  restore  it  to  the 
loser!"  she  demanded,  with  tears  in  her  eyes. 
"Mother,"  he  said,  suddenly  (pointing  to  an  article  on 
the  sideboard),  "where  did  you  get  that?"  "I  won  it 
at  a  Whist  Drive,"  said  the  distracted  woman.  "Won 
it  at  a  Whist  Drive!"  repeated  the  son.  "Well,  if  you 
will  send  that  back,  I  will  restore  the  money  I  won. 
You  taught  me  to  play  cards  in  this  house.  You 
played  for  that  prize.     I've  gone  just  a  little  further, 


ISO  REAL  RELIGION 

and  have  played  for  money.  But  it  was  my  mother 
who  taught  me  to  play  and  gave  me  the  desire." 

It  is  home  instruction  that  determines  what  your 
boys  and  girls  will  be.  The  devil  will  try  to  get  at  your 
child  soon  enough.  Guard  him  as  long  as  you  possibly 
can.  Lead  him  to  Christ.  Teach  him  to  look  to 
Christ.  Your  success  in  this  direction  will  depend 
upon  your  own  character,  your  own  communion,  your 
own  standing  before  God,  and  your  example  and  teach- 
ing to  those  who  call  you  by  the  sacred  name  of 
*'Mother." 

Have  you  ever  thought  of  this — that  it  is  possible  for 
your  children  to  rise  up  and  curse  you  instead  of  "call- 
ing you  blessed  ?"  Sin  will  make  all  the  difference  in 
their  attitude  toward  you  in  the  home — and  toward 
goodness — and  God.  I  am  not  telling  you  what  to 
give  up — that  is  not  my  business.  Somebody  said  to 
me  the  other  day,  naming  a  habit,  "Is  this  a  sin!"  I 
said,  "I  dare  not  say  so!"  There  are  commandments 
in  the  Bible,  and  it  takes  me  all  my  time  to  keep  them. 
Why  do  you  ask  me  that  question?  If  the  habit  is  a 
doubtful  one — if  the  doing  of  it  rests  upon  your  con- 
;science — take  the  question  to  Christ  and  in  the  light  of 
-His  purity  and  holiness,  decide  the  matter  once  and  for 
all.  Anything  that  comes  between  you  and  God  is 
wrong,  no  matter  what  it  is.  If  it  comes  between  you 
and  God,  it  must  go.  In  the  light  of  that  statement, 
you  can  settle  your  whole  life.  God  said,  "Thou  shalt 
have  none  other  gods  before  Me."  He  must  have  the 
place  of  the  throne  in  your  heart  and  in  your  home. 
He  will  not  share  your  devotion  with  another.  He  is 
a  jealous  God.     He  gave  you  everything  in  life  worth 


CHRIST  IN  THE  HOME!  ^31 

having  and  He  demands  from  you  your  best  in  return. 
Nothing  else  will  satisfy  Him.  He  demands  a  whole 
surrender.  Mothers,  you  will  be  more  likely  to  win 
your  children  for  God  and  good  if  you  are  right  your- 
selves. Wives,  you  will  have  a  better  chance  of  lead- 
ing your  husbands  Heavenward  if  you  know  and  follow 
the  path  Christ  trod.  Many  a  wife  stands  in  the  way 
of  her  husband's  salvation,  just  as  many  a  man  keeps 
his  wife  from  doing  the  will  of  God.  Many  a  woman 
would  win  her  husband  for  Christ,  if  she  was  an  out- 
and-out  Christian  in  the  home.  I  know  that  disciple- 
ship  needs  courage  and  moral  backbone.  It  means  tak- 
ing up  your  cross.  It  means  becoming  patient  and 
gentle  and  tender  and  loving  because  that  is  the  royal 
road  to  victory  over  self  and  over  moral  weakness  and 
sin.  Mothers,  for  the  sake  of  your  babies,  your  boys 
and  girls,  your  position  and  influence  in  the  home,  the 
city  and  the  Church,  let  Jesus  Christ  fill  your  life.  Be 
wholly  consecrated  to  His  service.  Tell  Him  that  He 
shall  have  one  life  true  to  Him,  that  your  time,  your 
talents,  your  mind,  body  and  soul,  shall  be  His.  Tell 
Him  that — and  now! 

Stand  by  that  promise!  Whatever  happens,  stand 
by  it.  If  you  will  do  that,  you  will  win  out,  for  faith- 
fulness and  loyal  devotion  will  have  its  abundant  re- 
ward. I  do  not  care  how  difficult  your  task  may  be, 
or  how  hard  your  life  may  be,  if  you  are  trlie  to  Jesus 
Christ,  you  will  win  a  great  reward,  and  win  those  you 
love. 

Believe  me,  it  is  the  home  life  that  tells.  It  is  the 
influence  of  home  that  leads  boys  and  girls,  youths 
and  maidens,  to  decide  for  Christ.     The  home  is  the 


132  REAL  RELIGION 

sanctuary  of  the  soul  as  well  as  of  the  body.  Nothing 
should  be  allowed  to  enter  into  it  that  defileth,  or 
maketh  a  lie.  Mothers  and  wives  and  maidens,  give 
yourselves  to  God.  Let  Him  protect  and  guide  you. 
The  only  way  to  go  through  life  safely  is  to  go  through 
it  with  God.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  words  in  the 
English  language  is  that  little  word  ''Home!"  One 
of  the  noblest  professions  in  the  world  is  that  of  a 
"Home-maker !"  I  once  heard  of  a  wealthy  man — an 
Engflish  aristocrat — who  declared  on  oath  before  a 
court  of  Justice  that  he  possessed  fourteen  houses — 
but  had  not  one  ''home."  It  is  possible  for  a  mansion 
to  be  but  a  lodging-house.  It  often  happens  that  a 
cottage  is  a  finer  "home !"  A  real  home  is  where  love 
is,  where  peace  is,  where  joy  is,  where  God  is.  A 
home  without  Christ  in  it  is  like  a  grate  without  a  fire 
in  it  on  a  cold  day.  A  mother  who  does  not  know 
Jesus  does  not  know  the  secret  of  "home-making" — 
of  building  up  a  happy  home. 

Mothers,  wives,  for  the  sake  of  your  children,  your 
husband,  your  city,  your  nation,  your  Church,  see  to 
it  that  Christ  is  the  corner  stone  of  your  house,  that 
His  altar  is  on  your  threshold,  that  His  service  is  your 
delight.  Then  you  will  raise  up  sons  and  daughters 
who  will  live  to  bless  you.  And  in  the  day  of  many 
surprises,  when  you  have  left  this  earthly  home  for 
one  of  the  many  mansions,  you  will  find  them  there 
— safe,  happy,  restored,  united,  with  not  one  absent. 
You  will  not  live  in  an  empty  house,  but  in  a  mansion 
of  God's  providing,  peopled  with  those  you  love  and 
who  love  you.  That  is  what  will  make  it  Heaven! 
May  that  Heaven  be  yours  some  day. 


XII 

PAUL  TEACHING  IN  THE 
INQUIRY  ROOM 


XII 

PAUL  TEACHING  IN  THE  INQUIRY  ROOM 

Text:  "Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to  be  saved?    And  they 
said,  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ !" 

Acts.    Chapter  i6,  Verses  30-31. 

Let  us  commence  by  supposing  that  Paul  is  the 
preacher  at  this  moment.  Let  us  imagine  that  some  one 
is  standing  up  and  is  saying,  'Taul,  I  am  an  anxious 
enquirer,  what  must  /  do  to  be  saved?"  Let  us  sup- 
pose that,  encouraged  and  inspired  by  that  question, 
another  person  rises,  and  says,  "Paul,  my  heart  is 
broken  and  burdened  with  sin,  and  I  want  to  be  a  better 
man,  what  must  /  do  to  be  saved  ?" ;  that  another  says, 
"Well,  Paul,  my  life  is  not  what  it  ought  to  be.  I 
know  I  am  not  living  as  God  wants  me  to  live.  What 
must  /  do  to  be  saved  ?  And  still  another  says,  "Paul, 
/  have  had  a  chequered  career  and  /  would  not  like  to 
say  how  my  life  has  been  lived.  God  knows,  and  I 
know.  What  must  /  do  to  become  a  Christian? 
What  must  /  do  to  be  saved?"  How  do  you  think 
Paul  would  answer  these  several  questions?  What 
do  you  think  he  would  say  ?  Ninety-nine  times  out  of 
a  hundred,  people  will  suggest  that  Paul  would  say  to 
these  enquirers  exactly  what  he  said  to  the  Philippian 
jailer.  That  is  where  we  make  a  mistake.  Paul  would 
only  say  the  same  thing  when  the  conditions  were 
identical.  This  text  has  become  a  great  classic  by 
being  used  together  with  John  3.     5,   16.     We  have 

135 


136  REAL  RELIGION 

hurled  these  two  verses  at  everybody,  regardless  of 
their  moral  condition  or  of  how  their  lives  have  been 
spent.  We  have  hurled  them  at  men  and  women  ir- 
respective of  their  mental  or  moral  attitude  to  Jesus 
Christ.  We  have  said,  ''Believe!  Believe!!  Be- 
lieve ! ! !"  The  devil  believes,  and  yet  he  is  not  a  saint ! 
He  believes  far  more  than  you  and  I  do!  He  knows 
more  about  the  truth  of  the  gospel! 

What  would  you  and  I  think  of  a  doctor  who  went 
through  a  ward  in  a  hospital  where,  say,  twenty  sick 
people  were  lying,  all  afflicted  with  various  ailments 
and  pains,  with  different  diseases ;  and  then  wrote  out 
one  common  prescription  for  all.  I  submit  his  action 
would  be  as  much  according  to  common-sense  as  ours 
is  when  we  try  to  save  men  and  women  '*en  bloc." 
It  is  there  we  so  often  blunder.  People  are  not  saved 
in  multitudes,  but  as  individuals.  God's  plan  is  to 
diagnose  each  case,  to  study  individual  difficulties,  to 
get  to  the  root  of  the  trouble  in  every  human  heart,  and 
then  to  tear  it  out.  That  is  God's  plan.  That  was 
also  Paul's  method.  That  has  been  the  method  of  all 
successful  soul-winners.  If  you  read  the  chapter  from 
which  the  text  is  taken,  read  it  carefully,  you  will  see 
that  is  just  what  Paul  did.  He  said  to  this  man, 
"Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved."  Then  he  took  him  and  taught  him — ^taught 
him  what?  "The  word  of  the  Lord!"  He  made  him 
realise  what  "believing"  meant.  Paul  did  not  deal  out 
superficial  truths  to  this  Philippian  jailer.  Why,  then, 
did  Paul  say  to  this  man,  "Believe"  ?  Because  he  was 
an  atheist;  an  infidel.  'To  him,  Jesus  Christ  was  a 
rank  impostor.     He  did  not  believe  in  Jesus.     Jesus 


PAUL  TEACHING  IN  INQUIRY  ROOM      137 

had  been  put  to  death;  and  these  men,  these  prisoners 
of  his ;  these  followers  of  the  crucified  Nazarene ;  they 
must  be  put  out  of  the  way.  His  orders  were  to  put 
them  into  prison;  and  he  did  a  ''bit  on  his  own";  he 
put  them  into  the  inner  prison  and  made  them  fast  in 
the  stocks  and  "laid  many  stripes  upon  them."  He 
was  a  sceptic,  an  unbeliever;  but  when  the  light 
flashed  upon  his  mind  and  conscience,  and  he  saw  the 
danger  to  his  own  soul,  in  that  moment  he  cried  out, 
"What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  Then  Paul  said, 
"The  only  thing  you  can  do  is  to  enthrone  Jesus,  to 
believe  on  Jesus.  He  has  been  an  Ambassador  to  you 
from  God;  now  believe  on  Him.  Unbelief  is  your 
predominating  sin;  your  damning  sin.  Let  that  sin 
go,  and  other  sins  will  slink  away  with  it  Hke  a  com- 
pany of  whipped  and  beaten  curs.  Put  Christ  in  His 
right  place.  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ!" 
Paul  said  that  to  this  man  because  that  was  his  sin — 
the  sin  of  Unbelief. 

Look  back  in  the  same  chapter,  and  there  you  will 
find  another  such  case.  Here  the  enquirer  is  a  w'oman, 
not  a  man,  and  you  will  see  that  Paul  dealt  very  dif- 
ferently with  this  woman  because  her  case  was  dif- 
ferent. There  was  a  woman  who  brought  her  mas- 
ters much  gain  by  soothsaying,  and  she  followed  Paul 
and  Silas,  saying,  "These  men  are  the  servants  of  the 
Most  High  God,  which  show  unto  us  the  way 
of  Salvation."  Listen  to  that  testimony.  If  that 
woman  had  lived  in  our  time,  the  leaders  in 
the  Church  would  have  put  her  on  a  Missionary 
Committee.  I  am  not  sure  they  would  not  have 
attempted   to    make    a   missionary   of    her.     At    any 


1S8  REAL  RELIGION 

rate,  they  would  have  made  her  a  member  of 
the  Church,  and  a  Sunday  School  teacher,  right  off. 
They  might  have  even  made  her  a  minister.  "These 
men  are  the  servants  of  the  Most  High  God,  which 
show  unto  us  the  way  of  Salvation."  Isn't  that  mag- 
nificent ?  Paul,  why  don't  you  make  a  preacher  of  such 
a  disciple  as  that?  "No,"  says  Paul,  "that  is  not  my 
way  of  dealing  with  this  woman.  The  devil  can  preach, 
but  I  refuse  to  accept  the  devil's  gospel.  She  has  got 
the  devil  in  her;  a  lying  devil;  a  soothsaying  devil." 
But  Paul  might  have  said  to  the  woman,  "If  you  will 
believe,  you  shall  be  saved."  Why  did  he  not  say  some- 
thing like  that?  Because  the  woman  did  believe,  and 
said  so.  She  had  faith  of  a  kind,  but  it  was  not  saving 
faith.  There  is  a  faith  which  saves  and  there  is  a 
faith  which  damns,  and  Paul  realised  that  the  only 
thing  to  say  to  this  woman  and  to  the  devil  which  was 
in  her  was  "Come  out!  Come  out!"  And  Paul  said 
it !  That  was  a  very  different  method  of  dealing  with 
a  possible  convert  from  the  other.  You  see  Paul  was  a 
winner  of  souls.  He  studied  his  patient.  He  did  not 
write  his  prescription  before  he  made  his  diagnosis. 
Paul  put  his  finger  on  his  patient's  pulse  and  discov- 
ered her  condition.  He  took  time  to  think  and  to 
consider  how  best  to  deal  with  the  ailment  and  when 
he  was  sure  about  the  matter,  he  said  to  the  devil 
which  possessed  her,  "Come  out!" 

There  is  another  verse  in  the  same  chapter  which 
tells  of  the  conversion  of  another  woman,  a  very  dif- 
ferent type  of  woman.  If  you  had  known  Lydia,  you 
would  have  fallen  in  love  with  her,  she  was  so  beau- 
tiful, so  attractive,  in  mind  and  character.     If  you 


PAUL  TEACHING  IN  INQUIRY  ROOM      139 

ministers  could  get  a  woman  in  your  church  like 
Lydia,  she  would  be  about  the  most  popular  person  in 
your  congregation.  There  would  never  be  rows  or 
jealousies  where  Lydia  was.  There  would  be  no  bick- 
erings or  quarrellings  at  the  fancy  fairs  or  Church 
socials  where  Lydia  took  part.  Lydia — why,  Lydia 
went  to  a  week-night  prayer  meeting!  She  was  re- 
ligious. She  lived  up  to  the  light  she  had.  She 
was  moral,  pure,  lovable.  But  Lydia  lacked  Christ. 
With  all  her  morality,  her  social  position,  her  religious 
prestige,  and  her  outstanding  intellectual  attainments, 
Lydia  lacked  the  one  thing  needed — lacked  Christ. 
One  day,  as  usual,  she  went  down  to  that  little  place 
by  the  river-side  where  prayer  was  wont  to  be  made 
and  there  she  found  Paul  and  Silas,  who  began  to 
speak  and  to  pray.  There,  before  she  knew  exactly 
what  had  happened,  or  how  it  happened,  her  heart  was 
touched  and  her  soul  and  life  were  at  that  moment 
surrendered  to  Jesus.  All  her  preconceived  notions  of 
the  past  had  to  be  given  up  and  forgotten.  All  her 
thoughts  upon  morality;  all  her  self -righteousness 
forsaken  and  put  away.  She  yielded  her  life 
to  the  Christ  Who  had  died  for  her,  and  Who  rose 
again  and  her  heart  was  filled  with  His  dear  presence. 
The  man  in  this  gospel  story,  then,  has  to  give  up 
the  devil  of  infidelity  before  he  can  be  saved,  a 
woman  has  to  give  up  the  devil  of  soothsaying  and 
lying;  and  another  woman  has  to  give  up  the  devil  of 
respectability  and  religiosity.  In  the  hearts  of  all 
three,  Jesus  Christ  must  be  enthroned  and  obeyed. 
Paul  deals  with  each  case  on  its  own  merit,  taught  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  and  the  living,  unchanging  Word  of 


140  REAL  RELIGION 

God,  and  as  a  result,  all  three  persons  are  brought  into 
an  experience  of  joy  and  salvation  and  fellowship  with 
Jesus  Christ. 

Friends,  if  you  are  anxious  to  know  what  you 
must  do  to  be  saved,  listen!  Paul  would  say  to 
you,  *'Is  your  question  honest?"  If  you  said,  ''Yes!" 
he  would  say,  "Tell  me,  then,  what  is  your  sin? 
What  has  kept  you  from  Christ  all  these  years  ?"  One 
man  might  reply,  "Paul,  if  you  must  know,  it  is  my 
love  for  strong  drink."  Then  Paul  would  say,  "The 
devil  of  drink  must  come  out  of  you.  You  must  be- 
lieve, here  and  now,  that  Christ  can  cast  that  devil 
out.  You  must  trust  Jesus  with  your  life,  and  you 
will  be  saved."  Another  man  might  say,  "Paul,  if 
/  must  confess,  my  sin  has  been  that  of  avarice.  I 
am  a  gambler!"  And  Paul  would  reply,  "Then  give 
it  up,  and  beheve!"  If  a  third  was  to  say,  "My  sin 
is  Uncleanness,"  then  Paul  would  say  that  "Unclean- 
ness  must  be  rooted  out."  It  is  no  use  to  talk  about 
"believing"  until  sin  is  surrendered.  And  if  you  say, 
"My  sin  is  pride.  I  cannot  surrender!"  Paul  would 
say,  "But  that  devil  must  go  too,  for  faith  without 
works  is  dead!" 

The  truth  is,  we  have  preached  a  cheap  religion  far 
too  long.  We  have  cheapened  Calvary  in  our  thoughts, 
but  it  has  never  become  cheapened  with  God.  We 
have  preached  love  until  the  people  are  love-sick.  Sal- 
vation did  not  begin  so  much  in  the  love  of  God,  as 
it  did  in  the  holiness  of  God.  I  want  to  make  this 
truth  very  plain,  very  emphatic.  It  is  good  theology. 
Salvation  comes  from  the  Holy  Father,  Who  hates  sin, 
but  Who  loves  you.     He  hates  your  sin,  but  He  loves 


PAUL  TEACHING  IN  INQUIRY  ROOM      141 

you.  He  gave  His  Son  to  make  it  possible  for 
you  to  be  saved.  Your  faith  is  a  mockery  if  you  still 
cherish  your  sin.  Your  faith  is  false  if  it  does  not 
mean  absolute  surrender.  Let  me  prove  my  statement. 
Paul  and  Silas  took  this  man  about  whom  v^e  have 
been  reading,  and  they  taught  him  the  Word  of  the 
Lord.    What  happened  ?    Did  he  sit  there  and  sing : 

"I  will  believe:  I  do  believe"? 

No!  he  had  something  more  definite,  more  practical, 
more  religious,  more  godly,  to  do.  He  got  up  and — 
at  the  same  hour  of  the  night,  he  could  not  wait  until 
the  morning — 'Vashed  their  stripes.''  That  is  reH- 
gion — real  religion !  The  proof  of  that  man's  belief — 
his  faith,  was  in  the  "stripe-washing." 

Listen!  There  is  a  wounded  heart  somewhere  in 
God's  world  that  you  tore  to  shreds.  You  call 
yourself  a  Christian  and  yet  you  have  never 
stretched  forth  a  finger  to  heal  that  broken  heart.  You 
say  "I  believe,"  but  your  belief  is  an  illusion  until  you 
have  done  the  "stripe-washing."  Some  of  you  may 
have  money  in  your  pockets  which  does  not  belong 
to  you.  You  call  yourselves  "Church  members"  and 
say  "I  do  believe,"  but  that  money  must  go  back  to 
its  rightful  owner  before  you  are  a  Christian.  Stripe- 
washing  !  Surrender !  Casting  out  your  special  devil ! 
Belief!  Otherwise,  what  do  you  believe?  What  does 
your  belief  amount  to?  It  is  not  worth  the  noise  you 
make  about  it  unless  it  helps  you  to  "walk  humbly 
before  God"  and  to  "love  your  neighbour  as  yourself." 
"He    took   them   the    same   hour   of   the   night   and 


142  REAL  RELIGION 

washed  their  stripes."  That  is  rehgion.  If  you  be- 
Heve  you  will  try  to  undo  the  past,  and  to  straighten 
out  the  crooked  places  in  your  life. 

There  is  a  dear  old  mother  in  God's  world  that 
some  of  you  are  starving  to  death.  She  is  asking  for 
bread,  hungering  for  just  a  tithe  of  that  love  and 
worship  she  bestowed  upon  you  when  you  were  help- 
less and  small — and  you  are  giving  her  a  stone — the 
hard  stone  of  neglect  and  indifference  wherewith  to 
feed  her  empty  heart.  Some  day,  perhaps,  you  are 
going  to  make  up  for  that  by  putting  flowers  on  the 
coffin  when  she  is  too  dead  to  smell  their  perfume. 
Let  your  mother  feed  on  your  love  while  she  is  still 
living.  Wash  the  stripes  at  the  same  hour  of  the 
night !  Many  of  us  have  been  playing  at  religion  too 
long.  It  is  time  we  got  down  to  business,  and  began 
to  live  out  our  belief  in  Christ. 

"And  the  next  morning  he  rejoiced  in  God  with 
all  his  house. '*  Of  course  he  did!  He  had  done  the 
right  thing,  chosen  the  right  way.  You,  also,  will  have 
joy  "in  all  your  house"  when  you  obey  God:  when 
you  put  God  into  His  rightful  place  in  your  heart; 
when  you  do  your  best  to  straighten  out  the  crooked 
places  in  your  life.  Then  you  will  get  joy  which  will 
flow  as  a  river.  God  does  not  ask  you,  or  expect  you 
to  feel  like  preachers,  or  evangelists,  or  anybody  else, 
but  He  does  insist  that  every  man  and  woman  must 
give  up  sin  and  trust  Him.  If  you  will  do  that,  He 
will  take  care  that  you  have  your  blessed  realisation 
of  the  Joy  of  the  Lord. 

Supposing  the  jailer  and  Lydia  were  called  upon 
to     tell     us     of     their     experience     of     conversion. 


PAUL  TEACHING  IN  INQUIRY  ROOM   143^ 

The  jailer  might  say,  "I  tell  you,  mine  was  a 
proper  conversion.  There  was  an  earthquake.  You 
ought  to  have  been  there.  You  ought  to  have  seen 
the  lightning  flash  and  heard  the  thunder  roll.  I  tell 
you,  mine  was  a  proper  conversion.**  And  then, 
quietly  and  gently,  Lydia  might  say,  "Thank  God  for 
an  earthquake  that  will  save  such  a  man.  But  there 
was  no  earthquake  when  I  was  converted.  In  fact,  I 
hardly  knew  when  it  had  happened.  It  took  place  by 
the  river-side  one  morning.  I  went  to  the  little 
prayer-meeting  held  there,  not  with  any  special  ex- 
pectation, and  found  brother  Paul,  who  preached  and 
prayed,  and  there,  like  the  breaking  of  a  beautiful 
dawn  upon  a  sleeping  world,  the  light  came  into  my 
soul,  and  Jesus  became  my  *All-in-all.* "  That  is  just 
what  happens.  Your  joy  will  be  like  a  flowing  river. 
I  do  not  say  you  will  feel  like  the  Philippian  jailer 
felt,  or,  indeed,  anybody  else;  but  you  will  have  your 
own  experience — "there  are  diversities  of  operations, 
but  the  same  God  which  worketh  all  in  all.*'  What 
I  am  anxious  about  is  that  you  should  do  right. 
Then  God  will  take  care  that  you  have  an  experience 
all  your  own;  one  that  will  be  infinitely  precious  and 
beautiful  to  your  own  soul.  Neither  does  it  matter 
in  what  way  your  conversion  comes.  Some  people 
look  for  a  spiritual  earthquake  before  they  can  be 
saved,  but  that  may  never  come.  Earthquakes  only 
come  when  God  sends  them,  and  He  does  not  send 
them  everywhere.  Others  look  for  something  tremen- 
dous to  happen  to  prove  they  are  converted.  If  they 
will  but  do  the  thing  which  is  right,  take  God  at  His 
word,  trust  His  Grace,  and  walk  in  harmony  with  His 


144  REAL  RELIGION 

Will  they  will  understand  that  the  ''tremendous  thing" 
has  already  taken  place.  Many  people  stumble  here. 
They  say,  ''If  I  could  only  feel  like  somebody  else  I 
know."  That  cannot  be.  It  is  not  necessary  to  salva- 
tion. It  is  astonishing  how  many  people  think  that 
everybody  ought  to  be  converted  just  as  they  were. 
Christ  does  not  promise  uniformity  of  experience; 
that  everybody  should  have  the  same  experience. 
When  you  submit  to  the  unalterable  conditions,  and 
surrender  your  whole  heart  to  the  keeping  of  Jesus 
Christ  you  will  have  your  own  experience. 

Now,  will  you  do  this?  You  know  what  you  have 
to  give  up.  You  know  God's  gospel — and  you  know 
your  own  sin.  Will  you  do  it?  When  you  empty 
your  heart  of  sin,  it  will  be  possible  for  Jesus  to 
come  in. 

"In  my  hand  no  price  I  bring, 
Simply  to  Thy  Cross  I  cling." 

Why  bring  no  price?  Because  occupied  hands  can- 
not be  clinging  hands.  If  you  want  Christ,  empty 
your  hands — your  heart — of  everything  that  is  evil. 
He  is  here.  He  is  waiting.  He  wants  to  come  to 
you.  Will  you  submit?  He  is  the  World's  greatest 
Lover.  Will  you  take  Him  as  yours?  Say  to  Him 
in  heart-sobs  of  greeting,  "My  Lord,  and  My  God." 
Lay  hold  of  Him;  lay  hold  of  Eternal  Life!  Do  it 
now! 


XIII 
BEARING  AND  SHARING 


XIII 

BEARING  AND  SHARING 

Jext:  "For  in  that  He,  Himself,  hath  suffered." 
Hebrews.    Chapter  ii,  Verse  i8. 

I :  BEARING 

It  is  Jesus  of  whom  the  writer  of  Hebrews  is 
speaking.  Jesus,  of  The  Throne,  Son  of  God,  Very 
God  of  Very  God,  He,  who  was  in  the  beginning,  who 
threw  out  planets  as  easily  as  scattered  raindrops, 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  Bethlehem,  Gethsemane,  Calvary. 
He  it  is  that  the  writer  of  Hebrews  tells  us  suffered, 
and  who  being  tempted  is  able  to  succour  them  that 
are  tempted. 

There  are  meanings  to  this  verse  that  should  be  im- 
pressed upon  every  heart.  And  lay,  first  of  all,  the  em- 
phasis on  the  pronoun — Christ  suffered  for  me.  Will 
you  ponder  over  these  words  as  though  you  had  never 
read  or  heard  them  before  in  all  your  life?  Will  you 
not  close  your  eyes  to  the  persons  or  things  about  you 
and  give  yourself  up  to  this  thought,  closing  your 
ears  to  all  the  sounds  which  assail  them?  "Christ 
suffered  for  me."  For  me.  We  have  heard  those 
words  again  and  again,  read  and  reread  them  until 
they  mean  very  Httle  to  the  majority  of  us.  Their  im- 
port, their  stupendous  meaning,  the  height  and  the 
depth  and  length  and  the  breadth  of  these  words  have 
never  yet  commenced  to  reach  some  of  us. 

And  if  we  have  heard  them  we  have  never  realised 

147 


148  REAL  RELIGION 

their  full  significance,  or  completely  taken  in  their 
meaning.  It  would  need  more  than  one  lifetime  to  do 
that.  We  talk  about  Christ  dying  for  the  world  but 
what  does  that  mean  to  us  ?  How  much  of  that  mes- 
sage has  ever  reached  my  conscience  or  stirred  me  to 
action?  How  much  of  that  message  has  ever  reached 
my  intelligence  and  revolutionised  my  thought  and  the 
values  I  have  set  on  things?  Has  it  awakened  me — 
pulled  me  up  short — startled  and  challenged  my  atten- 
tion? Has  it  ever  humiliated  me  or  laid  me  in  the 
dust — seeing  myself  as  God  sees  me?  Or  has  it  given 
me  a  deep,  disquieting  conviction  of  my  own  sin  and 
need?  Have  I  seen  myself,  as  a  lost  sinner,  hopeless, 
undone,  alienated  by  birth,  outside  the  covenant  of 
promise,  without  hope  and  without  God  in  the  world? 
Have  these  words  made  me  think,  and  feel  my  exact 
state  or  see  myself  as  I  am,  or  the  condition  which 
caused  Christ  to  suffer  for  me  ? 

The  difficulty  that  God  has  with  the  most  of  us  is 
to  make  us  see  sin  as  it  is,  in  all  its  awful  blackness 
and  to  see  sin  in  ourselves,  to  realise  the  deceitfulness 
of  our  own  hearts,  to  come  to  a  right  view  about  our 
own  relationship  with  Jesus  Christ,  to  see  the  great 
gulf  sin  has  made  between  Him  and  us.  The  difficulty 
God  has  with  my  heart  is  to  make  me  feel  that  I  am 
the  worst  man  that  ever  lived.  And  the  difficulty  that 
God  has  with  me  is  to  make  me  feel,  every  moment 
of  my  life,  that  I  need  His  redeeming  grace  and  that 
without  it — I  dread  to  use  the  word  lest  I  fail  to  put 
the  meaning  into  it — without  it,  I  am  lost,  and  lost 
forever. 

What  is  our  Bible  for,  if  it  is  not  to  teach  us  that? 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  149 

And  what  is  our  education  for  if  it  is  not  to  give  us  a 
tender  conscience  and  the  sensitiveness  of  mind  which 
makes  us  see  and  feel  that  there  is  none  whole?     No, 
not  one,  apart  from  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ.     It  is 
to  make  us  know  that  we  are  all  sinners;  that  we  all 
need  Him,  and  that  as  the  old  prophet  said  a  long 
time  ago,  "All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray."      All! 
He  did  not  say  some,  or  a  few,  or  designate  a  class. 
It  is  not  the  people  in  the  tenements  and  the  slums 
merely,  but  the  people  in  the  villas  and  the  palaces, 
the  people  riding  in  the  automobiles  and  the  aeroplanes, 
the  people  wherever  you  find  them,  all  like  sheep  hav- 
ing gone  astray.    "We  have  turned."    That  may  hum- 
ble us,  and  it  should ;  that  may  pierce,  and  so  it  ought. 
That  may  even  make  us  angry,  but  it  is  the  truth.     I 
may  not  like  it,  but  it  is  there,  and  though  I  may  rebel, 
that  is  God  Almighty's  truth.     I  may  fight  and  resist 
and  struggle  against  it,  but  it  is  unalterable,  and  God 
has  written  it  in  black  capitals  around  the  whole  world. 
"All  have  sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God." 
And  if  you  by  your  own  choice  shut  yourself  out 
of  the  first  "all"  you  shut  yourself,  by  choice,  out  of 
the  second  "all"  in  that  verse.     "All  we  like  sheep 
have  gone  astray.     We  have  turned,  every  one,  to  his 
own  way,  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  Him  the  iniquity 
of  us  all."    If  we  go  in  at  the  first  "all"  we  will  come 
out  at  the  second.     But  if  we  shut  ourselves  out  of 
the  first  "all,"  we  have  no  part  or  lot  in  the  second. 
And  if  we  say  we  don*t  come  under  the  first  "all," 
then  we  are  taking  an  axe  and  cutting  down  the  sacred 
cross  of  Christ.    If  we  say  the  first  "all"  has  no  appli- 
cation to  us  we  are  tearing  out  the  redeeming  grace  of 


150  REAL  RELIGION 

God  from  His  very  word,  and  looking  up  into  the 
face  of  the  Infinite  and  telling  Him  He  does  not  know 
His  own  business.  You  are  possibly  saying  Calvary 
is  superfluous,  and  you  do  not  need  it,  and  there  is  no 
worse  sinning  than  that  kind  of  sinning.  These  things 
need  to  strike  down  to  the  very  roots  of  our  being  be- 
fore we  shall  realise  what  Calvary  means.  No  man 
can  understand  anything  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ 
until  he  sounds  the  depths  of  his  own  sin. 

For  sin  is  not  a  cutaneous  disease  that  you  can  wash 
away  with  a  lotion ;  or  a  moral  measles ;  and  it  is  not 
in  the  blood.  It  is  in  the  heart.  It  is  not  in  the  brain, 
nor  merely  in  the  hand.  It  is  deeper.  And  though 
you  dress  it  up  in  rich  clothing  and  fine  linen,  it  is 
there;  though  you  decorate  it  with  flowers  and  gar- 
lands, it  is  there,  and  you  have  only  to  cut  deep  enough 
to  find  it  and  the  only  cure  this  Book  says — is  Jesus 
Christ.  "Christ  suffered  for  me."  And  did  that  ever 
come  home  to  you,  with  all  its  simple  force — with  all 
its  wonderful  meaning?  That  Christ  went  to  Calvary 
for  you  as  though  there  was  not  another  human  being 
living,  as  though  there  was  not  another  man  or  woman 
on  the  face  of  this  planet.  And  if  there  had  been  no 
other  man  living  or  no  other  woman  living  but  you, 
Christ  would  have  gone  to  Calvary  for  you.  Well 
might  the  poet  sing: 

"But  none  of  the  ransomed  ever  knew 

How  deep  were  the  waters  crossed, 
Or  how  dark  the  night  the  Lord  passed  through 

Ere  He  found  His  sheep  that  was  lost. 
Out  in  the  desert  He  heard  its  cry. 

Sick,  and  helpless  and  ready  to  die." 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  151 

It  was  a  dark  night,  the  waters  were  deep,  but  He 
faced  the  night  and  He  faced  the  waters  and  plunged 
into  the  abyss  for  you,  for  me. 

Oh,  you  say,  I  have  heard  this  a  thousand  times. 
I  know  you  have,  but  has  it  done  anything  for  you, 
has  it  cost  you  anything?  Has  it  made  you  think,  or 
changed  your  deeds  and  Hfe?  Has  it,  in  short,  made 
you  a  new  creature,  sweet  and  beautiful  and  lovable 
and  Christ-like?  Has  the  vision  meant  anything  to 
you?  And  with  a  grateful  heart,  do  you  say,  *'He 
loved  me;  He  gave  Himself  for  me"?  He  suffered 
for  you.  He  lived  for  you.  He  died  for  you.  He 
faced  earth  and  hell  for  you.  The  hands  of  men  and 
devils  were  joined  to  tear  asunder  the  quivering  heart 
of  the  Son  of  God  for  you.  But  has  it  meant  any- 
thing to  you?  We  have  room  for  a  dog  in  some  of 
our  homes,  and  we  will  take  it  out  for  an  airing;  will 
actually  nurse  a  dog — some  of  us — will  positively 
spend  time  on  a  dog  that  we  have  never  given  to  the 
Son  of  God.  Oh,  Jesus  Christ,  what  Thou  must  bear 
as  Thou  dost  behold  the  depths  to  which  humanity  has 
fallen !  Have  we  any  time  for  Jesus  ?  Have  we  really 
any  love  for  Jesus?  Have  we  any  service  for  Jesus? 
"Oh,"  you  say,  "you  are  trying  to  make  a  wound  in 
my  heart  when  you  state  all  this."  That  is  what  I 
would  do  if  I  could,  that  I  might  bring  you  to  the 
Healer,  Christ.  Christ  suffered  for  you,  for  me.  Can 
you  let  that  thought  sink  into  your  heart?  And  if  it 
gets  into  your  heart,  into  your  conscience,  down  into 
the  roots  of  your  being,  it  will  illuminate  life  for  you, 
it  will  transform  it.  That  is  the  first  law.  Christ  suf- 
fered for  me. 


152  REAL  RELIGION 

He  bore  all,  my  sin,  my  curse,  my  shame.  And 
that  is  the  fact  of  redemption,  the  one  great  outstand- 
ing theme  of  this  book.  That  is  the  great  heart  throb 
and  sob  felt  here  and  should  be  the  dominant  note  in 
every  sermon;  that  the  foundation  stone  of  every 
church  in  the  land.  That  is  the  light  that  breaks  from 
the  cliff  tops  of  eternity  every  morning,  that  opens  the 
gates  of  dawn  without  a  creak  on  their  hinges;  that  is 
the  music  of  the  angels'  song;  that  is  the  glory  of 
earth,  as  well  as  its  shame.  That  is  the  song,  the  music 
and  the  power  which  is  going  to  redeem  the  world. 
God  help  us  to  behold  it. 

Sin  was  so  awful,  so  ugly,  so  black,  so  impossible 
of  cure  by  any  human  hand,  so  immense  in  its  guilt 
that  only  an  infinite  God  dare  face  it.  You  cannot 
even  name  it  without  hearing  the  hiss  of  the  serpent. 
When  you  try  to  say  it,  the  sibilant  hiss  is  there — 
s-s-sin.  Only  God  could  remove  it.  The  difficulty 
with  us  is  that  we  spell  sin  with  a  small  "s" ;  we  want 
to  take  the  sting,  the  shame,  the  cancer,  the  hatred,  the 
murder,  the  death,  out  of  it.  But  when  we  have 
covered  sin  with  costly  clothes,  and  decked  it  with 
flowers  and  enriched  it  with  jewels  and  enthroned  it 
in  a  palace  it  is  still  God's  enemy  and  man's  foe.  We 
may  think  the  poison  is  gone — but  it's  all  there.  It  is 
hell's  great  triumph  to  deceive  us  concerning  the  na- 
ture of  sin.  And  all  that  sin  means  He  bore  for  me. 
And  when  I  open  my  eyes  to  see  the  joy  of  it  as  well 
as  the  shame  of  it,  then  He  turns  around  and  says  to 
me,  "My  child,  since  you  have  let  Me  bear  your  sin, 
now  let  Me  bear  your  sorrow.  I  bear  your  sin.  Now 
I   will   share   with   you    My   majesty.    My  life,    My 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  153 

strength,  My  comfort,  My  peace,  My  joy,  My  rest." 
And  this  text  makes  our  songs  possible.  There 
would  never  have  been  a  song  if  there  had  not  been  a 
text  like  this.  We  couldn't  have  sung  to  the  world, 
"Come  unto  Me,  and  I  will  give  you  rest,"  if  Jesus  had 
not  said  it.  Do  not  in  the  sentiment  of  it,  or  in  the 
perfection  of  it,  or  in  the  mere  literary  beauty  of  it 
forget  the  sufferings  of  Christ.  In  your  roses  do  not 
forget  the  cross.  In  your  art  do  not  forget  the  Man 
of  Sorrows,  acquainted  with  grief.  As  you  take  the 
gift,  kiss  the  hand  that  brings  the  gift.  Do  not  miss 
Him.  Let  Him  come  into  your  life  and  He  will  eat 
with  you,  He  will  share  with  you  and  you  will  find  that 
He  can  kiss  every  tear  into  a  jewel  and  He  can  change 
every  sigh  into  a  song.  And  when  you  have  walked 
with  Him  a  little  while,  you  learn  that  the  jewels  of 
character  are  the  crystals  of  suffering;  and  when  you 
have  had  fellowship  with  Him,  you  will  know  that 
tears  are  the  product  of  pain  and  you  will  discover 
that  you  get  the  sweetest  perfume  from  flowers  thai 
are  crushed  and  that  from  distilled  tears  you  can  write 
gospels. 

He  will  share  with  you  your  sorrows,  your  weak- 
ness, the  thorny  path,  the  rough  way,  the  hard  place, 
the  struggle,  the  conflict,  the  bitter  experience,  the 
heartache,  the  misunderstanding,  the  slander  and  the 
abuse.  He  knew  all  about  it.  He  went  there  ahead  of 
you  and  He  will  say  to  you  as  you  talk  to  Him  and 
tell  Him  of  your  weakness  and  sorrow  and  tears,  "My 
child,  my  hand  was  blistered ;  My  head  ached ;  My  feet 
bled;  My  heart  broke;  My  days  were  sad;  My  nights 
were  sleepless;  My  burdens  were  heavy  because  this 


154  REAL  RELIGION 

was  laid  on  Me,  and  of  the  people  there  was  none  with 
Me.  When  I  craved  for  sympathy  I  did  not  get  it. 
My  mother  misunderstood  Me;  and  from  My  own 
family  I  received  nothing  but  insult."  And  He  will 
say  to  you,  "Just  as  long  as  I  bear  the  marks  on  My 
hands  and  feet  and  side,  and  as  long  as  I  remember 
the  tears  and  the  thorns,  I  will  not  forget  you.  Thou 
art  Mine.  I  have  redeemed  thee.  Lean  on  Me;  My 
strength  shall  be  made  perfect  in  your  weakness. 
Share  with  Me  in  My  strength.  Be  not  afraid,  I  have 
overcome  the  world."  All  that  He  says  to  you,  and 
much  more.  He,  first  of  all,  bears  my  sin,  and  then 
He  shares  with  me  in  my  sorrow.  Every  hour,  every 
day,  moment  after  moment.  For  there  is  never  a  con- 
flict but  what  He  is  at  hand;  never  a  battle  that  He 
does  not  help  in  the  fight.  Never  a  cross  that  He  does 
not  get  underneath  with  me.  And  it  is  astonishing 
how  the  cross  fits  when  you  let  Him  buckle  it  on.  It 
never  chafes.  Oh,  take  the  comfort  out  of  your  gospel, 
my  brother;  let  down  your  bucket  into  this  glorious 
old  well  of  gospel  truth  and  draw  joy  this  very  day 
from  the  waters  of  salvation.  Appropriate.  Live  up 
to  your  privileges.  Possess  what  belongs  to  you. 
Claim  it.     It  is  yours.     The  steps  are  three. 

First,  He  bears  my  sin;  secondly.  He  comes  down 
into  my  life  and  shares  my  sorrow,  and  then,  finally, 
some  day  He  is  going  to  say  to  me,  ''Come  up  here 
with  Me  and  share  with  Me  in  My  glory."  When  you 
got  up  this  morning,  did  you  sit  down  a  few  moments 
and  think  about  the  inheritance  that  is  yours  in  Christ  ? 
Do  you  ever  stop  to  think?  You  are  only  a  stranger 
in  a  foreign  country;  you  are  only  a  pilgrim.     This  is 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  155 

not  your  home;  your  home  is  above,  where  He  is. 
Every  man  that  hath  this  hope  in  him  is  looking  for 
the  hour  when  He  shall  appear.  You  shall  see  Him 
as  He  is.     Are  you  looking  forward  to  that  day? 

Somebody  came  to  me  a  few  weeks  ago  with  some 
remark  about  the  crown  which  I  should  get  when  I 
reached  heaven.  It  does  not  bother  me  much  about 
the  crown;  I  have  small  concern  with  that;  I  do  not 
care  very  much  whether  I  have  one  or  not,  if  I  can  only 
crown  Him.  When  they  talk  to  me  about  the  golden 
streets  and  the  jasper  walls  and  the  many  mansions 
and  the  streets  of  gold,  I  say  to  myself,  "What  would 
all  that  mean  to  me  if  I  had  not  Jesus?"  You  may 
take  your  golden  streets  and  your  jasper  walls  and  your 
many  mansions  and  your  gates  of  pearl.  You  may 
have  them  all  if  you  will  give  me  Jesus.  Jesus!  He 
who  died  for  me;  who  has  had  patience  with  me  all 
these  years;  who  has  not  cast  me  off  when  I  deserved 
it;  who  has  not  forsaken  me  when  I  have  forgotten 
Him ;  who  loved  me  with  a  love  that  surpasses  the  love 
of  all  those  who  are  dear  to  me.  If  you  will  give  me 
Jesus  and  my  dear  mother,  you  may  put  me  back  into 
my  gipsy  tent  and  that  will  be  all  the  heaven  I  want. 
I  must  have  Jesus  and  those  I  love,  and  that  is  Heaven. 
We  are  going  to  live  with  Him  forever.  Does  that 
thought  thrill  you  to  a  deeper  consecration,  to  a  more 
whole-hearted  service,  to  a  determination  to  live  for 
Christ  as  you  have  never  lived? 

A  little  while  ago  in  one  of  our  colliery  districts, 
a  young  collier,  who  was  converted  during  the  Welsh 
revival,  one  morning  was  carried  home  from  the  pit 
more  dead  than  alive,  and  he  lay  in  the  little  cottage 


156  REAL  RELIGION 

with  his  mother  watching  and  waiting  for  the  first 
signs  of  Hfe.  At  length,  when  he  did  just  come  back 
to  partial  consciousness  he  found  his  mother  sobbing 
over  him,  as  a  mother  would,  as  though  her  heart 
would  break.  And,  at  this,  callecj  back  by  the  mother's 
love  to  full  consciousness,  he  said,  "Mother,  what  are 
you  crying  for?"  And  she  put  her  hands  on  his  poor 
back  and  around  his  bruised  head  and  she  said,  "Oh, 
John,  your  head  is  so  smashed  up/*  "Never  mind, 
mother,"  he  replied,  "the  crown  will  fit."  The  crown 
will  fit!  That  is  the  confidence  of  the  child  of  God. 
Have  you  got  it?  If  you  have  not  that,  what  is  the 
use  of  all  the  rest  you  possess?  Your  soul  is  not  a 
corn  chest,  or  a  safe-deposit  vault.  Your  soul  needs 
God.  Are  you  feeding  on  Him?  Are  you  resting  in 
Him  ?  Can  you  close  your  eyes  now  and  say,  "Christ 
suffered  for  me ;  He  is  mine ;  I  am  His'*  ?  If  you  can 
say  this  you  are  sitting  in  the  twilight  of  the  coming 
glory. 

"In  pining,  sickness  or  in  health, 

Christ  for  me. 
In  deepest  poverty  or  wealth, 

Christ  for  me. 
And  in  that  all  important  day, 
When  I  the  call  of  death  obey 
And  pass  from  this  dark  world  away, 

Christ  for  me." 


II :  SHARING 

Now  turn  with  me  to  the  Epistle  of  Peter  and  read 
three  portions  therefrom.     The  first  is  found  in  the 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  157 

Second  Epistle,  the  first  chapter  and  the  fourth  verse, 
"Partakers  of  His  divine  nature."  The  second  por- 
tion is  found  in  the  First  Epistle,  the  fourth  chapter 
and  the  thirteenth  verse,  'Tartakers  of  His  sufferings." 
The  third  portion  is  found  in  the  First  Epistle,  the 
fifth  chapter  and  the  first  verse,  "Partakers  of  His 
glory." 

Let  us  look  into  these  words  with  an  earnest,  devout 
spirit,  desiring  only  to  see  and  understand  the  mind 
of  God.  Only  the  prayerful  and  those  sympathetic 
with  God  can  understand. 

If  you  read  these  verses  carefully  with  their  con- 
text intelligently,  you  will  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  means  far  more  to  be  a  Christian  than  the  average 
professor  seems  to  realise. 

In  these  days  the  tendency  is  to  cheapen  the  teaching 
of  this  Book.  We  have  lowered  its  standard  and  with 
multitudes  of  people  it  means  a  very  little  thing  to  be 
a  Christian.  It  does  not  cost  anything  to  be  one. 
Joining  the  church  is  not  much  nowadays.  We  come 
into  the  church,  easily  and  we  slip  out  of  it  easily.  We 
have  lowered  the  standard.  We  have  broadened  the 
narrow  way.  Our  religion  is  a  sickly,  sentimental 
sanctimoniousness,  instead  of  being  vital,  life-giving, 
a  terror  to  evil-doers,  its  presence  a  rebuke,  its  author- 
ity commanding,  resisting,  and  holding  in  reverence 
and  holy  awe.  We  have  lost  much  by  our  incon- 
sistency. 

When  I  came  to  Christ  a  quarter  of  a  century  or 
more  ago,  it  was  a  serious  matter,  and  our  old  grand- 
mothers* religion  was  a  serious  business,  and  we  have 
not  improved  on  our  grandmothers*  religion  yet.     To 


158  REAL  RELIGION 

be  a  Christian  then  was  to  enter  on  a  conflict;  it  was 
a  warfare,  a  struggle,  a  pilgrimage;  it  was  resisting 
sin,  even  to  blood.  There  was  a  text  in  the  Bible  that 
talked  about  cutting  off  the  right  arm  sin;  there  was 
another  one  that  talked  about  plucking  out  the  right 
eye  sin;  there  was  another  that  talked  about  being 
maimed,  limbless,  for  Christ's  sake.  There  was  a 
text  that  said,  "Come  out  from  among  them,  and  be 
ye  separate,  and  touch  not  the  unclean  thing,  and  I 
will  be  a  Father  unto  you,  and  ye  shall  be  My  sons  and 
daughters,  saith  the  Lord  God  Almighty."  There  was 
another  text  that  said,  "Obedience  is  better  than  sacri- 
fice and  to  harken  than  the  fat  of  rams" ;  and  another 
that  said^  "If  any  man  will  be  My  disciple  let  him  take 
up  his  cross  and  deny  himself  and  follow  Me";  and 
another,  "Be  not  conformed  to  this  world,  but  be  ye 
transformed  by  the  renewing  of  your  mind  that  ye 
may  prove  what  is  that  good  and  acceptable  and  per- 
fect will  of  God."  Men  believed  these  words  once.  Men 
preached  them.  Now  it  is  a  picnic,  a  social,  an  enter- 
tainment. Now  it  is,  "Come  up  here  and  I  will  shake 
hands  with  you  and  make  you  a  member  of  the 
church."  It  is  just  as  easy  as  that  with  many.  These 
hands  of  mine  could  write  your  name  down  on  a  piece 
of  paper  and  call  it  a  church  record.  These  hands  of 
mine  could  confirm  you ;  for  there  is  as  much  in  these 
human  hands  as  other  human  hands.  But  though  I 
could  write  your  name  down  on  a  piece  of  paper  and 
make  you  a  member  of  a  religious  club  or  an  educa- 
tional institution,  it  takes  the  Holy  Ghost  to  make  you 
a  child  of  God.  But  in  this  day  we  have  compromised ; 
we  have  lowered  the  standard  to  win  and  we  have 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  159 

failed  to  win  in  the  doing  of  it,  and  I  would  rather  lose 
my  soul  in  an  honest  attempt  to  keep  the  standard  up, 
though  I  never  reached  it,  than  I  would  lose  my  soul 
lowering  the  standard  to  suit  my  own  miserable,  con- 
temptible experience.  Our  business  is  to  keep  God's 
standard  up. 

What  does  it  mean  to  be  a  Christian?  "To  partake 
of  the  divine  nature!"  And  you  are  not  a  Christian 
until  you  have  done  this.  And  you  have  no  claim  to 
the  title  until  you  have  reached  that  experience,  I  do 
not  care  who  gave  the  name  to  you ;  you  have  no  right 
to  it.  It  does  not  belong  to  you  until  you  have  in- 
breathed, taken  in,  absorbed,  conformed  to,  become  a 
part  of,  the  divine  nature.  That  is  what  religion 
means  according  to  the  New  Testament,  to  be  a  par- 
taker of  the  divine  nature,  to  so  take  in  Jesus  that  all 
who  look  into  your  face  shall  be  made  to  think  of  Him ; 
that  all  who  come  into  your  presence  shall  feel  they  are 
in  the  presence  of  Jesus;  that  those  who  shake  hands 
with  you  shall  feel  a  little  bit  of  the  lifting  power  of 
Calvary;  that  those  who  have  to  do  business  with  you 
will  feel  they  are  doing  business  with  somebody  who 
reminds  them  of  Jesus.  Those  who  live  with  you 
shall  feel  they  are  living  with  Christ's  man,  Christ's 
woman.  They  come  into  contact  with  a  new  creature 
and  they  recognise  Christ  when  they  see  Him.  They 
know  when  He  is  there  and  they  see  Him  in  you  be- 
cause you  have  become  part  of  Him,  and  Christ  in  you 
is  the  hope  of  glory.  Is  that  the  kind  of  experience 
you  have?  I  wonder  what  this  man  went  through 
before  he  wrote  these  words,  what  kind  of  a  spiritual 
upheaval  in  his  moral  nature  had  taken  place  before 


160  REAL  RELIGION 

he  was  able  to  write  a  line  like  that.  What  kind  of  a 
new  creating  power  had  passed  through  his  being  be- 
fore he  was  able  to  say,  ''A  partaker  of  the  Divine 
Nature."  Oh,  the  joy  of  it,  when  a  soul  awakes  to 
this  and  out  of  the  depths  of  its  own  new  life  is  able 
to  say : 

"Life    immortal,    Heaven    descending, 

Lo,  my  heart,  the  spirit's  shrine,  » 

God  and  man  in  oneness  blending, 
Oh,  what  fellowship  divine !" 

Do  we  know  anything  about  that,  men  and  women  ? 
Nearly  two  thousand  years  ago  this  was  Peter's  re- 
ligion. Is  ours  as  good?  With  all  the  light  and  the 
triumph  and  the  vision  of  the  ages,  yours  and  mine 
ought  to  be  a  little  better  than  his.  But  is  it  as  good? 
Have  we  taken  in  Christ  or  have  we  put  on  the  mind 
of  Christ  ?  Have  you  lived  in  Him  at  all — is  it  Christ 
who  lives  in  you?  What  a  wonderful  experience  it 
mpst  have  been  to  the  Apostle  Paul  when  he  was  able 
to  say,  "Christ  died  for  me."  He  didn't  stay  there ;  he 
got  one  step  further,  and  you  hear  him  saying,  ''I 
died  with  Christ;  I  am  crucified  with  Christ,"  and  he 
didn't  stay  contented  there  even;  he  got  beyond  that, 
and  he  said,  ''I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me." 
And,  on  another  occasion,  he  said,  "For  me  to  live  is 
Christ,"  that  is,  'Tor  me  to  live" — for  Paul  to  live — 
"is  for  Christ  to  live  over  again  in  me."  If  Paul  came 
here  to  preach  do  you  think  you  wouldn't  hear  Jesus  in 
him?  If  Paul  were  to  engage  in  prayer  in  your  pres- 
ence, do  you  think  you  would  not  hear  Jesus  in  the 
prayer  and  feel  Jesus  ?    Or,  if  Paul  came  to  live  in  your 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  l6l 

house  for  a  little  while,  do  you  not  think  you  would 
know  Jesus  was  there  ?  And  your  neighbours  and  your 
friends  and  your  family  and  your  husband  and  your 
children,  your  wife,  people  who  sit  at  the  same  table 
with  you,  people  who  work  at  the  same  desk  with  you, 
the  people  who  do  business  with  you,  the  people  who 
come  up  against  you  in  daily  life,  ought  to  be  just  as 
conscious  that  Christ  is  in  you  as  they  were  conscious 
that  the  disciples  had  been  with  Jesus  and  learned  of 
Him;  and  if  it  is  not  so  there  is  something  the  matter. 
What  kind  of  Christ  are  you  representing  to  the  world? 
What  kind  of  Christ  are  you  interpreting  to  the  people 
of  the  present  age?  Jesus,  the  Man  of  the  cross? 
Just  the  kind  of  Christ  that  you  have  absorbed  into 
your  own  soul  you  are  revealing  day  by  day.  If  it  is  a 
superficial  Christ,  if  it  is  a  sentimental  Christ,  if  it  is  a 
socialistic  Christ,  if  it  is  a  poetical  Christ,  if  it  is  an 
over-tolerant  and  indifferent  Christ — if  that  is  all,  that 
is  all  you  are  revealing;  but  if  it  is  the  Christ  of  Cal- 
vary who  hates  sin  enough  to  die  to  put  it  away,  if  it 
is  the  Christ  who  comes  to  save  His  people  from  their 
sin  and  make  them  whole  and  has  done  that  for  you, 
that  is  the  kind  of  Christ  you  are  revealing  to  the 
world.  Just  as  much  of  the  Divine  Nature  as  you  have 
taken  in  you  are  revealing;  no  more.  How  can  you 
give  what  you  do  not  possess,  or  work  out  what  you 
have  never  allowed  God  to  work  in  ? 

It  was  my  joy  once  to  conduct  a  mission  in  Paris. 
I  wish  there  were  opportunity  here  to  record  some  of 
the  wonders  of  the  triumphs  of  grace  amongst  those 
beautiful  and  artistic  Parisians.  There  a  lady  came  to 
me  one  night,  tears  streaming  down  her  face,  a  cul- 


162  REAL  RELIGION 

tured  French  woman,  wringing  her  hands  in  distress, 
with  heart  hunger  in  her  face,  and  crying:  "Oh,  man 
of  God,  I  want  your  Jesus,  your  Jesus.  I  can  love 
your  Jesus,  and  I  cannot  love  a  clerical  Jesus."  *'Your 
Jesus ;  I  want  your  Jesus ;"  and  do  you  know,  that  ever 
since  then  there  occasionally  comes  to  my  heart,  and 
my  mind  demands  the  question  of  my  heart,  *'What 
kind  of  a  Jesus  are  you  revealing  to  the  people  you  are 
preaching  to?  What  kind?"  And  the  kind  of  Christ 
you  love  and  the  kind  of  Christ  you  serve  and  the 
kind  of  Christ  you  obey  is  the  Christ  that  is  felt  in  you 
and  through  you. 

What  kind  of  Jesus  are  you  living?  Are  you  a  par- 
taker of  the  Divine  Nature?  Oh,  I  do  not  care  and 
the  world  does  not  care  about  your  profession;  it  does 
not  count.  I  do  not  care  about  your  activity  in  Chris- 
tian work;  it  doesn't  amount  to  anything  if  you  are 
not  living  the  true  Jesus — it  is  mere  fuss.  I  do  not 
want  to  know  what  position  you  occupy  in  the  church 
or  how  long  you  have  been  a  member  of  it  or  how 
much  you  know.  Have  you  taken  on  Jesus?  That  is 
the  question.  But  we  are  to  be  more  than  partakers 
of  the  Divine  Nature;  we  are  also  partakers  of  His 
sufferings — sufferings !  No  one  wants  to  suffer  nowa- 
days? least  of  all,  perhaps,  in  the  church.  Suffering 
is  for  all  mankind — ^though  for  ourselves  just  the  very 
thing  we  want  to  get  rid  of;  we  do  not  want  to  suffer. 
Who  wants  a  broken  heart  ?  We  pride  ourselves  now, 
that  every  one  desires  to  get  rid  of  suffering;  the  whole 
fabrication  of  society  tries  to  ward  off  sorrow  and  to 
prevent  our  recognising  it  when  it  exists.     It  is  the 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  163 

scheming  and  the  desire  of  all,  morning,  noon  and 
night,  to  keep  away  from  the  sad  and  the  tearful  and 
the  burdened;  and  yet  nobody  knows  Christ  who  is 
not  willing  to  suffer  with  Him. 

That  is  part  of  Christianity.  And  it  is  a  very  vital 
part,  too.  The  Christian  life  is  not  all  joy.  You 
must  be  prepared  to  go  with  Him  in  the  shadow  and 
in  the  darkness  and  in  the  storm  and  be  willing  to  walk 
with  Him  alone,  to  walk  with  Him  when  you  are 
counted  a  fool  for  Christ's  sake;  you  must  be  willing 
to  walk  with  Him  when  it  is  unpopular  to  walk  with 
Him;  you  must  be  prepared  to  walk  with  Him  when 
everybody  runs  away  and  forsakes  Him.  You  must  be 
prepared  to  walk  with  Him,  though  you  do  it  with 
bleeding  feet  and  a  breaking  heart ;  you  must  put  your 
shoulders  under  the  burden  and  help  Him  carry  it. 
For  Christ  is  still  a  lonely  Christ — aye,  and  to  the  end 
of  this  world,  ever  will  be — and  the  best  of  us  really 
are  not  willing  to  follow  Him  all  the  way ;  we  are  will- 
ing to  follow  just  as  long  as  it  pays,  just  as  long  as  it 
suits  us,  just  as  long  as  it  means  pillows  and  sunshine. 
We  do  not  care  to  drink  the  bitter  cup ;  we  do  not  want 
the  crown  of  thorns;  we  do  not  want  Calvary.  That 
is  the  thing  we  want  to  avoid.  Nobody  likes  Good 
Friday,  though  everybody  wants  the  flowers  and  the 
sunshine  of  Easter.  But  we  do  want  to  eliminate 
Good  Friday  from  the  calendar.  And  yet,  men  and 
women,  no  Good  Friday  means  no  Easter.  Good  Fri- 
day makes  Easter  possible,  and  if  there  is  no  Good 
Friday  in  your  experience  and  mine  there  will  be  no 
Easter  dawn.    To  be  a  Christian  means  to  suffer : 


164  REAL  RELIGION 

"Not  for  ease  or  worldly  glory, 

Nor  for  fame,  my  prayer  shall  be; 
Gladly  will  I  toil  and  suffer. 
Only  let  me  walk  with  Thee." 


With  Thee!  There  is  a  joy  in  sorrow,  a  secret  balm 
for  pain,  a  handful  of  sweet  manna,  of  sunshine  after 
rain.  When  you  are  there,  there  is  a  branch  of  heal- 
ing near  every  bitter  springs,  a  whispered  promise 
stealing  over  every  broken  string;  and  there  is  a  joy 
— we  say  it  with  reverence — a  joy  that  Jesus  would 
never  have  known  if  He  had  not  gone  to  Calvary. 
And  so  it  comes  about  we  have  these  words,  "Who 
for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  Him  endured  the  cross, 
despising  the  shame."  And  he  who  lives  to  evade 
suffering  will  never  know  Christ  in  his  fulness.  But, 
if  on  the  other  hand,  one  partakes  of  suffering  with 
Jesus,  will  there  be  joy  in  life;  can  such  be  a  happy 
Christian  ?  Yes.  Happy  because  you  go  down  into  the 
depths  with  Christ  in  order  to  lift  up  and  to  save. 
Happy,  ten  thousand  times  yes,  because  you  see  the 
conquest  and  victory,  because  you  have  fellowship 
with  Him.  That  is  why  you  are  happy.  Do  you  know 
anything  about  it?  Did  you  ever  sit  up  for  a  night 
watching,  watching  and  trying  to  win  a  lost  soul  for 
Christ?  Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  lie  awake  unable 
to  sleep  because  some  soul  is  crushing  you  to  the  earth 
and  you  are  bravely  fighting  for  its  deliverance  from 
the  guilt  and  the  power  of  sin?  Do  you  know  what 
it  is  to  go  out  in  the  darkness  with  the  Good  Shep- 
herd and  seek  until  you  find?  Do  you  know  anything 
about  that?     Oh,  men  and  women,  it  costs  something 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  165 

to  be  a  Christian.  It  costs,  and  it  means  tears  and 
blood. 

A  lady  who  was  interested  in  some  sort  of  Chris- 
tian work  in  London,  wrote  me  once  and  said,  '*! 
have  a  meeting  I  want  you  to  come  and  speak  to.  It 
is  only  a  small  meeting,  and  it  will  take  nothing  out 
of  you."  I  answered,  "I  cannot  come;  and  it  would 
be  no  use  if  I  did  come.  If  it  takes  nothing  out  of 
me  it  will  do  nobody  any  good."  It  is  the  service  that 
costs  and  a  cheap  religion  isn't  worth  preaching.  It 
costs.  It  costs.  He  was  weary  and  sat  thus  on  the 
well ;  weary  because  out  of  Him  there  flowed  His  own 
life  in  the  lifting  up  of  other  people.  Do  you  know 
what  it  means,  I  ask,  to  live  one  hour  for  Christ  and 
with  Him  in  the  saving  of  a  soul?  Oh,  I  often  fancy 
I  hear  my  Master  say  to  some  flippant  professed  Chris- 
tian, "Could  ye  not  watch  with  Me  one  hour?"  Not 
one  hour.     It  costs,  I  say,  to  be  a  Christian. 

Years  ago,  when  I  was  a  young  preacher  in  the  serv- 
ice that  was  given  up  to  the  glorious  privilege  of  testi- 
fying to  the  grace  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  several  peo- 
ple gave  their  testimony.  One  said  he  had  been  saved 
from  drunkenness,  and  another  from  gambling,  and 
another  from  the  life  of  pleasure  and  so  on.  Presently, 
a  sweet  and  beautiful  girl  arose,  born  in  an  attractive 
home,  with  good  blood  in  her  veins,  refined  and  cul- 
tured. She  looked  at  the  people  who  had  given  their 
testimony  and  then  she  said,  "God  has  done  a  great 
and  wondrous  thing  for  many  of  you  people  who  have 
spoken.  But,"  she  added,  "He  did  more  for  me  than 
he  did  for  all  of  you;  He  saved  me  from  an  easy 
armchair" — and  it  often  takes  a  very  real  salvation  to 


166  REAL  RELIGION 

save  professed  Christians  from  laziness — ''He  saved  me 
from  an  easy  armchair!"  But  more  than  this — she 
was  not  only  saved  from  her  armchair,  but  she  was 
most  decidedly  called  into  the  service  of  Christ;  she 
became  an  officer  and  captain  in  the  Salvation  Army, 
against  the  wish  of  her  friends.  But  it  was  the  call  of 
her  Lord,  and  she  followed.  Her  mother  and  her 
friends  opposed  her,  and  even  did  all  they  could  to 
thwart  her,  but  it  was  the  call  of  her  Lord  and  she 
went  forth.  She  did  not  listen  to  flesh  and  blood;  she 
gave  no  heed  to  those  who  were  nearest  to  her,  who 
would  gladly  have  blocked  her  way  to  service  for 
Christ,  and  to  humanity.  She  went  forth  to  spend 
and  to  be  spent,  and  for  several  years  she  gave  her 
beautiful  life  in  all  weathers  to  the  outcast,  to  the  lost 
and  to  the  Christless.  Then  the  breakdown  came  and 
they  carried  her  home  to  be  nursed  by  her  mother  with 
the  hope  that  in  the  old  home  and  with  the  old  sur- 
roundings she  would  rally  and  recover.  The  doctor 
was  called  in  and  then  the  specialist,  and  a  consultation 
was  held,  and  a  careful  examination  made.  Then  the 
specialist  said  to  her,  'Tf  you  will  give  up  your  work, 
and  absolutely  stop  preaching  and  singing,  and  stop 
visiting  the  sick,  we  think,  if  you  will  take  our  advice, 
we  can  pull  you  around.  And  in  a  year  it  may  be  pos- 
sible that  you  will  be  something  like  your  old  self  again; 
but,"  said  the  doctor,  sternly,  ''if  you  will  go  on  with 
this  Salvation  Army  business  you  will  die."  She 
looked  up  at  the  doctor  and  a  little  bit  of  the  light  that 
surrounds  the  throne  was  seen  in  her  face  when  she 
said,  "Doctor,  let  me  work  well  for  one  more  year  and 
I  will  be  content  to  die." 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  167 

That  is  the  spirit  that  saves  the  world.  Have  you 
got  it?  That  is  religion.  You  know  we  have  been 
too  long  playing  at  religion:  it  is  time  we  began  to 
Hve  it.  The  men  outside  in  the  streets  who  do  not 
come  into  our  churches,  they  take  no  stock  in  shams. 
But  the  reality  commands  respect.  Partakers  of  the 
Divine  Nature  means  to  be  partakers  of  His  suffer- 
ings, and  that  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  be  partakers 
of  His  glory. 

A  friend  and  I  were  recently  talking  about  the 
glory  of  seeing  Jesus  face  to  face.  The  thought  over- 
whelms me  when  I  think  of  the  moment  when  I  wash 
the  dust  out  of  my  eyes  by  the  river  that  comes  near 
the  seat  of  God ;  when  all  the  meanness  has  been  washed 
away,  when  all  the  limitations  are  gone,  when  all  the 
narrowness  from  my  poor  little  soul  has  been  just 
stripped  off  and  I  see  Him  face  to  face.  That  moment ! 
And  then  the  joy  of  seeing  my  mother  and  the  hosts 
from  around  the  planet  that  I  have  had  some  share  in 
helping  to  win  for  Christ.  Will  anybody  meet  me? 
That  is  the  glory.  There  will  be  no  glory  to  the  man 
or  to  the  woman  who  has  just  got  in  by  the  skin  of 
his  teeth,  saved  so  as  by  fire.  He  will  never  say,  "Well 
done,*'  if  you  haven't  done  well.  God  is  no  respecter 
of  persons,  and  He  will  not  lie  to  please  anybody.  The 
glory  is  to  come  to  those  who  have  lived,  honestly  striv- 
ing, honestly  struggling,  honestly  sacrificing  in  order  to 
glorify  him  on  the  earth. 

You  know  it  says  in  a  little  phrase  in  this  Book, 
"Enter  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord."  That  is  a  special 
joy;  and  only  those  will  enter  into  the  joy  of  the 
Lord  who  have  entered  into  the  sufferings  of  their 


168  REAL  RELIGION 

Lord  as  well.  This  is  the  fruit  of  a  growth,  the  con- 
summation of  a  past,  the  glory  of  the  Lord !  We  are 
to  be  partakers  of  that.  He  will  take  some  of  us  by 
the  hand  some  day  and  say,  *  These  are  they  whom  you 
helped  Me  win,"  and  before  triumphant  worlds  that 
never  need  a  Saviour  because  of  their  obedience  to  the 
Divine  Nature,  He  will  say,  *'These  are" — yes,  that 
man  and  that  man  and  that  woman — "these  are  they 
that  helped  Me  to  win ;  they  went  forth  suffering,  toil- 
ing, living,  dying,  willing  to  help  Me  win  the  world 
and  to  save  it  from  sin."  That  is  the  business  for  me. 
Are  you  in  this  business,  men  and  women?  This  is 
religion  as  I  conceive  it  in  the  New  Testament.  Do 
you  know  anything  about  it?  Partakers  of  His  Divine 
Nature,  partakers  of  His  sufferings  and  then  partakers 
of  His  glory.  I  think  sometimes  I  would  like  to  live 
until  the  last  soul  comes  back  to  God.  I  would  like  to 
join  in  the  shout  which  will  ring  over  the  ramparts  of 
the  city  of  our  God. 

One  night  in  one  of  our  meetings  in  a  great  city  in 
a  huge  and  crowded  building  that  seated  eighteen  thou- 
sand people,  there  was  a  battalion  of  soldiers,  a  splen- 
did set  of  young  fellows,  fifty  in  all.  We  reserved  a 
space  for  them  and  they  sat  there,  on  my  right.  I 
turned  to  them  once  and  asked  them  if  they  would 
sing  a  chorus  for  that  whole  audience,  "Where  He 
leads  me  I  will  follow,"  and  they  sang  it,  and  sang  it 
with  all  their  might.  When  the  appeal  came  for  those 
who  would  give  themselves  for  Christ,  one  young 
soldier  got  up  and  then  another,  then  another,  and 
then  another,  until  forty-nine  of  them  had  gone  into 
the  inquiry  room  and  the  fiftieth  sat  still  with  his  head 


BEARING  AND  SHARING  169 

bowed  in  his  hand.  One  of  his  comrades  left  the  in- 
quiry room  and  went  back  to  his  seat  and  put  his  arms 
around  his  comrade's  neck  ,and  pleaded  with  him  to 
come.  He  hesitated,  and  I  went  down  and  pleaded 
with  him,  and  presently  the  man  rose  and  followed 
his  comrades  into  the  inquiry  room,  the  last  man  of 
fifty.  That  huge  audience  of  eighteen  thousand  people 
could  not  resist  it;  they  broke  out  into  applause  when 
the  last  man  went  in.  And  I  believe  that  if  I  could 
look  from  the  battlements  of  the  sky  when  the  last 
man  comes  home,  I  would  turn  in  that  same  spirit  and 
shout,  "Cheer!!!" 

I  think  if  I  work  well  and  live  well — if  I  am  not 
privileged  to  see  it  from  earth — they  will  let  me  look 
on  from  the  battlements  of  the  sky,  and  I  will  add  an- 
other fagot  to  the  bonfire  of  eternal  victory.  That  is 
something  of  a  taste  of  the  joy  of  my  Lord.  Will  you 
be  in  this  service?  Has  earth  anything  to  compare 
with  it?  Are  there  pleasures  or  joys  to  be  named  in 
the  same  breath  with  it  ?  Do  not  waste  your  precious 
time  in  vainly  hunting  empty  bubbles  in  the  air.  Do 
not  try  to  feed  your  precious  soul  on  ashes,  on  the 
whirlwind.  Oh,  young  man,  Christ  is  worthy  of  the 
best.  There  is  no  life  which  can  compare  with  the 
life  spent  in  the  service  of  the  King  of  kings.  There 
is  no  master  like  Him,  no  service  equal  to  His.  Young 
woman,  give  him  the  sweetest  hours,  the  purest  heart 
throb,  the  noblest  you  possess.  It  is  the  path  to  the 
truest  womanliness,  to  a  beauty  of  character  which 
never  fades,  to  happiness  which  has  no  bounds.  Do 
not  waste  yourselves  on  that  which  will  bring  ruin, 
heartbreak  and  a  Christless  eternity,  and  cannot  satisfy 


170  REAL  RELIGION 

even  while  it  ruins.  Be  ready.  Ye  know  not  what 
an  hour  may  bring  forth.  Is  your  heart  anything 
that  it  ought  not  to  be?  Bring  it  to  Jesus.  He  will 
take  away  that  sullen  heart.  He  will  cleanse  it.  He 
will  give  you  a  new  heart.  He  will  make  you  a  new 
creature,  for 

He  breaks  the  power  of  cancelled  sin, 

He  sets  the  prisoner  free; 
His  blood  can  make  the  vilest  clean, 

His  blood  avails  for  me. 


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